Name: The Best of Scarlett Johansson | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-03-31T15:01:02.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Best of Scarlett Johansson | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-03-31. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Best of Scarlett Johansson | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-03-31. Transcript available.

The Best of Scarlett Johansson | David Letterman

Where are you from?
New York.
We're in New York City, right here.
Oh, well, good for you.
How old a girl, woman, girl are you?
Girl, 13.
13, so you're just a kid then.
You're just really a kid.
Sure.
Yeah, was this like your first big movie,
this Robert Redford deal?
This was the first,
this was like the largest part that I've ever had,
other than I did an independent film called Manny and Low,
and I played Manny, so.
Yeah, so you've been doing this a while then.
Yeah, I guess, you know, in scarlet years, it's a while.
In scarlet years, meaning, sure,
it eats up a huge percentage of your life,
but you're only 13,
so what are we talking about, really, then?
I've been doing it for about five years.
How did you get started?
Did your folks help you get started?
Did you always want to be an actress?
What did you know?
I've always wanted to be an actress.
I mean, ever since I can remember,
I mean, I remember when I was three,
telling my mom that I had a fire in my brain to act,
and, you know, she must have thought I was crazy or something,
but she said, you know, wait until you get older.
Yeah, I remember when I was three,
I told my mom, there's something wrong in my diapers.
That's a whole different deal, though.
And did you ride horses and stuff?
I had never really ridden horses before.
I mean, I actually told them.
I kind of, I felt bad about it afterwards.
You lied that you were an accomplished equestrian?
Well, no, I didn't say.
I didn't use those words exactly,
but, you know, Bob Redford said,
have you ever been on a horse before?
And I said, yes, I've been on a horse before.
They may have been plastic, you know.
But I didn't tell him that.
I just said I'd been on a horse before.
I took him literally.
And so, and then when I got the part
and we started filming,
the Wranglers called the casting director.
My casting director called my agent
and was like screaming on the phone.
She doesn't know what she's doing.
We thought she knew how to ride.
She was like, no, she told you
she'd been on a horse before.
Exactly, yeah.
So, I had to.
And did you finally take to it all right?
I mean, what is the trick?
You just have to be comfortable on the animal.
Yeah, I mean, I think after a few lessons,
I was more comfortable and confident
with what I was doing.
You know, at first I was kind of like...
And what about, you called Robert Redford Bob.
Now, is that all right?
Did you be calling him Bob?
Well, I don't really call him Bob.
Yeah, what did you call him?
I call him Bowie.
Called him Bowie.
Yeah, he didn't really like it at first,
but after a while he got used to it.
He got used to being called Bowie.
Yeah.
And why exactly was Bowie the name of choice?
Well, I think I didn't like to call him Bob.
You know, it's not that I don't like the name Bob.
All you Bobs out there, you know, don't be offended.
But I think that I didn't...
I felt like if I...
Bob sounded too formal and too kind of...
Like the people that thought it was cool to know him
would call him Bob, you know, like me and Bob.
First of all, he's too old to be called Bob.
Well, come on.
You could call him Robert.
You could call him Robert.
You could call him Mr. Redford.
I don't know about this Bowie thing.
That's between you and Bob.
But the fact that the guy is in his late 70s means...
You're not calling him Bob, you know what I'm saying?
I'm excited to have you here because you know why, you know why,
the first time you were on this show,
you were like 13 years old, is that right?
I was, yes.
It was about seven or eight years ago.
That's crazy, isn't it?
And I have something to tell you about that.
All right.
I remember when you used to give out canned hams to people?
You would pass out canned hams.
Yes.
People loved it.
Well, I loved it.
And when I was on the show, I asked the producers if I could please have a
canned ham.
And you gave me one after the show, and it's still in my refrigerator.
Wow.
Yes.
At first...
What?
Wow, that could be dangerous, don't you?
At first it was, I know, it could be, it could have combust.
Lethal.
But at first we thought, you know, it was sort of a family kind of oddity,
and everybody stared at it, and oh, there's the canned ham.
And then kind of a couple of years later, around the holiday times,
we'd want to make more room in the fridge.
But then it became kind of part of the family.
Part of the family.
Yes, yeah.
Can't really get rid of the ham, can you?
No, so it's...
But I just wonder if it would be safe, I mean, is it bulging or hissing or is
it throbbing?
I don't know when the last time we checked on it was, but...
Oh, man.
Possibly.
Oh, my gosh.
Because, you know, when we got them, they weren't exactly fresh.
So add another four or five years onto that ham.
We just had, like, a New Year's Eve.
Did you have a big New Year's Eve celebration?
Well, I had planned on having a sort of celebration.
I went out and I got sushi because I thought it would be kind of glamorous,
and we went to this very glamorous sushi restaurant.
But it was a prefix menu, and the first, you know, the appetizer,
the first thing that came out was a raw lobster in a martini glass.
And I don't know...
Raw lobster meat cut up and in a martini glass.
It wasn't really cut up.
I don't know if you ever had raw lobster, but it's sort of...
It's like big pieces, and you kind of have to, like...
You have to kind of commit to it because it's sort of...
Yeah.
It just is clear and slimy, and you just kind of put the whole thing in your
mouth.
It was awful, and by the fifth course, we were just...
We didn't want...
We said, please stop.
No more.
No more.
And it was, you know, it was...
From then on, the night just sort of went south.
Yeah.
You know, but it's moments like that you can say to your friends,
you know, I got a ham back at the house.
If you want to come by, you're not too sick.
Now, when you turned 21, you celebrated at Disney World or Disneyland?
Well, when I turned 20, I had a birthday at Disneyland.
But this year...
Oh, that's right.
That's right.
Yeah, my brother wanted to go to a strip club, so we went there.
Strip club?
Yeah.
Well, what's that for?
I mean, why?
Did you want to...
Well, Disneyland's all the way in California, and we were in New York,
so we went to a strip club instead.
Yeah.
So it's the obvious alternate destination.
And...
I mean, do women enjoy that sort of thing?
Well, some women do.
But I thought, you know, my brother wanted to go,
and he had the time of his life, and I went, and I thought,
oh, it would be funny, we'd round up the family and everything.
Well, the family goes.
Well, no, you know, family and friends.
Family and friends, sure.
Yeah, well, you know, it spans generations, the club,
you know what I mean?
Yeah, that's right.
So we got there, and, of course, somebody ordered me a lap dance,
which, you know, of course, I first went, you know, like, no, no, no,
and then I thought, okay, I will.
Yeah.
And this girl, she was very...
You know, I always don't ever know what...
I don't...
Not always, because, of course, this was one of my first experiences
as it was at the club, but I never know what to say.
I sort of say things like, are you in school, and...
Are you in school?
You know, is Candy your real name?
But I had a very strange experience.
Wow, and what was the experience?
Well, I had this sort of...
I mean, first of all, isn't it embarrassing?
I mean, I've never had a lap dance, and I know that...
But I think I would find it exciting and embarrassing a little bit.
What kind of music is that?
That's just the boys having a little fun over there.
Is that a heartbeat?
Lap dance, yes, yes, it's a heartbeat, Scott.
So, what was your experience?
Well, I had this very tall girl.
She was like, I don't know, she was Amazonian.
She was like this tall, really, really, really skinny girl.
And she was quite manic and strange.
And so she's kind of gyrating into me.
And she was so thin that her, like, pelvic or hip bone
or some kind of bone, like, bruised me.
It was horrible.
It was horrible.
I mean, what I mean to say is that there's, you know,
she was being all sexy, and there's areas that just bruise easily.
And I was uncomfortable.
Well, happy birthday.
Thank you.
Now, do you have any of those live theater mishaps
that we hear about cell phones, people eating candy,
somebody dying in the front row, any of that?
Nothing exciting like that yet.
But, you know, we've had a couple of, you know,
I mean, of course, people come in on a Friday and Saturday night,
and they're, you know, they're totally blasted.
And that's always, you know, sort of exciting and strange for us.
We had some woman faint yesterday.
I guess she, you know, had her liquor before beer or whatever.
We all know that old rule of getting faster.
Yeah, it's posted right in the playbill.
They should look at that before they get drunk.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And when you're, who's the guy, the co-star in this?
Liev, Liev Schreiber.
Oh, Liev Schreiber.
Yes.
So now you do scenes that are physically intimate.
I mean, in space, in terms of space, you're acting right on.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
We're really close to one.
I mean, and in fact, actually, we have these scenes where he's really gotten,
you know, he's getting very upset, and there's a lot of rage,
and all kinds of, you know, these emotions bubble up.
And a couple of weeks ago, we were doing this scene,
and he really is right here, and he starts screaming at me,
and I'm tensing up.
And all of a sudden, I saw it.
It was like, it happened in this kind of slow motion,
these, like, pearls of spittle sort of flying out.
And then this one, like, asteroid of a loogie just, like, landed.
But it made that flicking, like, that flicking, flicking sound right there.
And it was...
Oh, God.
And, you know, any normal person would just wipe it away.
But I felt the show must go on.
And then suddenly, both of us were just kind of doing our lines,
but we couldn't...
It was this horrible, like, he saw it, and I saw it.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh.
It was awful.
Oh, for God's sakes.
Yes, yes, it was really unfortunate.
But, you know, maybe it added to the, you know,
the heightened sense of, I don't know, nausea.
You think, could the audience see this?
The heightened sense of nausea.
Could the audience see this, do you think, when it took place?
Oh, yeah, I'm sure.
It was like a...
It's a real deal.
He hit it right out of the park, you know, it really...
Plop.
Do you know anything about the tweeting?
I don't know anything about it.
I don't know anything about it either,
and I know I'm afraid that I'll get in trouble.
In what way?
Well, because it's like shooting your mouth off.
And if you shoot your mouth off, you're always going to get in trouble.
I see.
So you're just afraid that it's going to be...
You just...
It's going to be like a verbal diarrhea kind of thing.
So, yeah, that kind of thing, because I don't fully understand...
Diarrhea sounds...
I shouldn't have said that.
It doesn't sound nice at all.
I thought you said diary, is what I thought you said.
That sounds better.
Yeah.
I'll take that.
Yeah, sorry.
And since I have no control over it,
I'm afraid that not understanding the equipment, I will cause trouble.
I know exactly how you feel.
Do you do anything?
Do you email or any of that stuff?
I have an email.
I had an email.
Yeah.
But, yeah.
You got one email.
Yeah.
Some...
I don't do any of that social networking stuff.
I don't know.
I don't know.
The idea of it just...
It baffles me.
It seems like you're having fun with it, though.
Now, listen, here's...
I'm exactly...
You should be...
You should know better
because I'm three times as old as you are
and I'm supposed to be a dope about stuff like this.
But this is right where you live, for God's sakes.
Is it?
I don't know.
All I know is that it sounds...
It seems like a good place to insult people
and that's...
I don't know what else you do on that.
Now, here's what I thought.
I met the email guy once
and I said to him...
The email what?
Not the email 