If you haven’t heard of the movie, here’s the synopsis:

Two young American women, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) come to Barcelona for a summer holiday. Vicky is sensible and engaged to be married; Cristina is emotionally and sexually adventurous.  In Barcelona, they’re drawn into a series of unconventional romantic entanglements with Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a charismatic painter, who is still involved with his tempestuous ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz).  Set against the luscious Mediterranean sensuality of Barcelona, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is Woody Allen’s funny and open-minded celebration of love in all its configurations.

Anyway, to help promote the movie, I recently got to participate in roundtable interviews with most of the cast and the one below is with Scarlett Johansson.

During the interview, Scarlett talks about working with Woody, what it was like on set and behind the scenes, and I even asked her about “Lost in Translation” and how the ending has been put online with added words…If you’re a fan of Scarlett’s, I promise you’ll like the interview.

As always, you can either read the transcript below or listen to the interview by clicking here. Again, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” comes out in limited release tomorrow.

Question: We saw you at the Teen Choice Awards last night, that was a really neat category...

Scarlett Johansson: You know what, those kids were amazing, I met all of them before and talked to them, and each one of them individually had, I mean I was amazed, I came home and I couldn't stop talking about these kids, they were incredible, some of the things they were doing were amazing, I mean the kid that I gave the award to was amazing, you know, here you have an African American kid in North Carolina fighting the tobacco company, it's like, what?  Just incredible, no but it was a cool category, and those people from the Do Something, that, they were so wonderful.  It was great.

Woody Allen does create these really extraordinary female characters which you've played several now.  What do you think sets your character in this movie apart from the predecessors?

SJ:  Well, I mean, they're all such different characters, I don't know it's a difficult question to answer because I mean everything about her I think other than her blonde hair you know, I'd be hard to find some comparison between her and the character I played in Scoop, you know, I mean it's such a ridiculous (laughs) character that I played in that film, but I think that it, you know, part of, you know, the best thing about working with Woody other than just getting to spend every day you know, chatting with him and bothering him and poking him and stuff like that, (laughter).

Poking him?

SJ:  Sure why not?  Got to make sure he's still like awake.  (laughter) But he you know, is, that he writes such fantastic female roles, and reading the script, the most exciting part about reading the script is getting to see you know, what are we all, you know, meaning you know, Penelope or I or whatever other women are in the part in the film, you know, what are we going to be doing next and he has such an appreciation and understanding for the intricacies of the female mind, you know in, I mean such an appreciation, I think he would say that we're a superior species or something, you know, he really, he loves women the way we think, and it's always some inspired character.

Do you identify with her?

SJ:  I think that I can identify with certain aspects of her philosophy, you know, her sort of Seize The Day attitude and her willingness to let life kind of happen in front of her, and just you know, take a chance and you know, live, live, live, that kind of attitude, I think that's, I do, I can certainly appreciate that part of her philosophy but you know, we're different, we have our differences as well.

How much ad-libbing did you do on this, it seems like there was a lot of ad-libbing going on, according to Rebecca and Chris.

SJ:  You know, it's hard to remember, I usually stick to the script but I think probably for Chris and Rebecca, it's you know, it's so unusual to work with a writer-director that isn't completely precious, married to their dialogue, that I remember Rebecca just being like, so Woody would say, I don't know, just you know, make it your own or whatever and I remember Rebecca just being like, what do you mean, make it our own? (laughter) You know, does he mean that, and every single actor that worked on this, like before our first day, came up to me and they said, how married to the dialogue is he, (laughter) I mean, is he precious about it, and especially you know, Penelope and Javier, I think they were a little worried about it, because it's so nuanced and I said, no, you'll see, you know, I felt like the old shoe you know, but it's you know, he really, of course you keep the idea and it's not, his writing's so brilliant, there's not much that you want to, you know, you want to keep it.

But Woody had even said that he didn't even know what Javier and Penelope were saying, until it was translated way back when he was like making the movie.  So in those scenes where they're having those arguments, and your character's there, we're supposed to really not know what they're saying, did they ever tell you what they were saying?

SJ:  Not really, no, I mean I didn't really want to know (laughter), I could understand a couple of the words they were saying and I was like, oooo, that sounds bad (laughter) but you know, it was not really that important, I think certainly my character was kind of in a similar situation as I was, which is like, kind of pick up a couple words, but it's just like, what, you know, that's part of her, I think part of the problem is she just feels like out of the, she always feels a little bit out of the loop, it's like one minute she's really coddled, and then she's kind of forgotten about, and she can't figure out how to balance it all I think, it doesn't feel like harmonious to her, and I think in the end that's kind of what makes her just say I love the summer, I love you both, and it's, I don't know, it doesn't feel right, like it's not working for me, you know?

Q7:  I'm intrigued by your relationship with Woody Allen in the sense of coming in and sort of rescuing him on Match Point, because you know, somebody else dropped out, Kate Winslet.  And ever since then, people like us have referred to your relationship, you're his new muse.  Are you comfortable with that idea and how do you perceive your relationship with him that seems to inspire him in a series of films?

SJ:  Every single junket that we've done so far, we always get the muse thing and when we always say no, it's not that way, it's not that way, and I don't think it is that way, I think I'm fortunate enough to fit in to the young girl part of the story, the young woman you know, just the same as Judy Davis would fit in to a certain part or Dianne Wiest would fit into a certain part, I think, you know, Woody as well as I, you know both of us appreciate how wonderful it is to work with your friends, and it's fun and we always have a great time when we do it, we entertain each other, and we understand each other and we poke each other (laughs)

So it's more that now you're part of his rep company is that how you perceive it?

SJ:  I think that might be more accurate, yeah.  I think that's more accurate, I don't think that Woody sits at home you know, with like a thing of Lo Mein, and a typewriter thinking like what is Scarlett doing now (laughter) and how can I you know, how can her life sort of inspire this tale and I know certainly not.

But he said at the press conference that he felt you were an actor cause you could do anything, I mean he was very, very high on (unidentified words) of your acting, are you surprised that he has begun to perceive you in that way and that you've seemed to have grown and evolved ever since you started working with him?

SJ:  I mean after the monthly payments, I'm not surprised that he would say that, I'm just you know, (laughter) write him a check and no I am, you know what, of course I'm always, I'm surprised, I'm always surprised how you know, a lot fortunate I've been, I can never quite understand what's happening (laughs) and I always just feel lucky to be employed and so for me it's such a high compliment for him to see me in any role or that he can imagine me doing anything, I mean as an actor, that's the best compliment.  You know, that you don't get pigeonholed into some type and you can you know, sort of seamlessly be, sort of manipulate yourself into these different roles and different time periods and different characters and that's what you hope that the audience, that's how you hope they feel as well, it doesn't always work out that way but it's certainly nice for somebody like Woody who I've always admired and always aspired to work with you know, to finally have worked with him now three times and it's really been a dream come true for me and as an actor there's no higher compliment certainly.

This gal pal dynamic of women who go on vacation together, they're pals, and often, have you ever found that you've gone on a trip with a female pal who just wants to do the total opposite of what you do?  And how do you handle that when a real good friend is like, you're interested in men, or interested in anything, is totally opposite.

SJ:  I mean, I don't know, you know, it's funny because obviously I'm lucky I have a couple of really good very close girlfriends and yeah, I mean our interests are similar obviously which is why we're friends, we have similar things that we appreciate and stuff like that, they're not actors and stuff like that, but we appreciate, you know, we have a certain asthetic, or things we like to do and but you know, always with when it comes to men, I've you know, you're going to differ from another woman (laughter) right, what she likes, and what she's into and how you feel about her boyfriend and you know, how she feels about your boyfriend and all of that stuff, so I try not to you know, that kind of thing of course it's great to be able to be close with a girl that you could both talk about these things, you know and get some relief, and another woman's perspective and all of that.  But you know, I've never been in such a specific situation where I was on a vacation, and like one girl wanted to go guy crazy (laughter) and I was like left in the hotel, you know (laughter), I mean I never fortunately been stuck in that kind of position, because I think with most of my girlfriends, we're, you know, we're pretty solid, you know, we go away together because we want to see each other, you know? (laughs)  But I think in this particular circumstance, in the film, I mean the two characters are, they're in different places in their lives, you know, they're very close friends, but perhaps they realized the summer that you know, they kind of branch out, the one character is engaged to be married and she's kind of taken a more conservative route and maybe she wasn't quite like that in college, or something, and you know, my character's still wandering and aimless and you know, is not quite figured out what she wants and you know, friends grow apart and I think that for this summer certainly they do, they're different, they're different, and they're probably different when they come home, you know?

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