Name: Scarlett Johansson's AI Performance In "Her" | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-07-12T22:00:05.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Scarlett Johansson's AI Performance In "Her" | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-07-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Scarlett Johansson's AI Performance In "Her" | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-07-12. Transcript available.

oh my god ladies and gentlemen i saw this movie have you seen this movie not
yet oh you ought to
go see this movie what a lovely uh piece of work this is and and and doubly
difficult i think for
this woman because as you may not know maybe you do know oh maybe i better not
say well let's well
ask her if you can say it or not yeah i don't want to ruin it i wish i had a
nickel for every movie
i've ruined oh well be a rich man our first guest is a talented actress she's
in a new provocative
film entitled her it opens nationwide on friday ladies and gentlemen here's
scarlett johansson
carlet how are you i'm very good thank you you look wonderful as always tell us
about your
holidays a nice holiday it was a nice holiday um i got stuck in the arctic
vortex like everybody else
and um yeah i just you know i made a snowman um uh lots of hot dogs and
whatever other canned foods
were around people were telling me that you were living part-time or some of
your time in paris is
that that true yes i do i actually um i decided to take the plunge and move to
paris um and uh it's
it's great i love it i mean you know of course some of the um you know the stardust
twinkles worn off a
little bit um now and you know you start to all the things that you thought
were charming before
are just annoying yeah well i don't want to say i'm just defending an entire
nation of people but
like usual but um well they're they're i'll tell you they're lucky to have you
for heaven's sake well
that's what i think of course
no but you know it's it's the little things like um you know i mean of course
when i first got there i
thought that people were not that the whole kind of rude parisian thing was
just like people aren't
rude they're wonderful oh that was before i was a mainstay there and then
people decided that once i
wasn't going away they could just be really terribly rude to me they could
relax and be rude yeah just
be themselves now uh i know very little about uh paris tell us uh which uh arrondissement
around yeah around around i live in the left bank actually which is very nice
yes it's the kind of
artists um is it near the latin quarter uh yes it's close to latin quarter you're
getting warmer
and what do you do there i like to walk around oh it's a beautiful city to walk
around i like to
walk around i mean i i well as i was saying you know people there are ruder now
um and so i i mean
i like to walk around but it's frustrating because well people there don't have
i mean i'm you know i'm
from new york and and i i assume that i'm the best like an amazing walker
because you know i'm from
you haven't seen my mom walk
well i just assume that you know i mean because we're from new york and you're
kind of you know
it's a it's a wonderful dance on the street you kind of avoid and do this you
know it's a it's a
choreography they're both two great walking cities and you're from one of them
yes
right now when i got there i assumed that you know it's kind of provincial town
but people don't
know how to walk here like they don't walk anywhere they walk everywhere and
the fact that they're just
body checking me as they come it's just part you know they're just confused
yeah um but no they're
not confusing now so i just do like a stare down from halfway down the block
and i started getting
really aggressive with people now good for you and i don't care are you with
her ladies and gentlemen
she doesn't care
i'm a superhero for sake this uh you know what i mean this uh now i want to
talk to you about this uh
film her oh my god you got a hold of something here now now uh first of all i
have questions can i say
or should i not say did people know or do they not know you know what you're
talking about i'm scared
i mean you're in you're in the movie you're in the movie yes i am in the movie
yeah but but but
people might hurt themselves trying to find you right can i can i can we say
that the big reveal
is it a big reveal well i don't know i never know what to say just i you know
what to say you're good
with words just say it but she's i'm well you only hear me you never see that's
right that's right
that's right they hire this actress so we only hear her
well now first of all is the money the same
the same as what as if we got to see you um you know what i have to ask my
agent about that maybe
i got cheated out of uh something i don't think making there's a lot of money
in a spike jones
movie you kind of do it for um for the free food now this is this is uh uh
first of all i know nothing
about spike jones have you worked with him before uh i've never worked with him
before i i've uh i love
his work though i mean i've always been a fan of his and it's a it's a whole
new creative process
doing what i did because i did all of my stuff post-production in a studio with
joaquin and with
spike and then sometimes the picture so i never got to see anybody working on
set really right and and
one wonders if for an actor that's more a difficult part of the process but you
you are actually there
with your co-star yes yes but in the film you're not really there with your co-star
you're just listening
and talking back and forth yeah it's it's um it's a different kind of a
challenge because
because i think in some ways you're sort of in a and you're in a very contained
environment and so
everything is heightened in some way and um you're you're hyper aware of your
all your intonation and
all those nuance in your vocal performance and and so it's a different it's a
different kind of a
challenge i'm telling you the result is is amazing and i i don't want to go too
much farther down the
the road here talking about this the the writing of this what a monumental
accomplishment this is for
god's sakes this is an original screenplay it's an original screenplay and it's
spike's first screenplay
and it and it really is um i think incredibly touching and poignant and it it i
think was
as much of a sort of um a kind of cathartic experience for him as it was for
all of us as
actors i think we all got to really dig deep um and and kind of go there you
know and they're promoting
the movie as a guy who falls in love with his computer well that's an oversimplification
it really
is much much more than that but that's how it's being marketed but you take you
take that idea and
you think well really is that more than like an eight minute sketch really an
eight minute skit but
the fact that it sustains uh for two hours it's just a lovely piece of work
thank you i mean i think
because the character uh samantha that i play is um she's a character that
really well she says she's
growing through her experiences and so she she has she's evolving and i think
if she didn't have that
evolution it would be kind of be this one note thing but because she's
discovering herself
and joaquin's character theodore is discovering himself through this
relationship with her and
these two characters are really you know finding themselves in one another um
you know it can really
it's a it's really quite like i said a very poignant love story let me ask you
another technical
question we have a joaquin uh phoenix and we'll get to that goofball in a
minute
uh and then we have have you as the co-star of the film though we never see you
now is the
maybe we've covered this but is the acting the same if it's just your voice or
is it different if
it's just your voice i don't know it's it it feels um it feels very authentic
and of course because
joaquin was kind enough to come in and do the work with me so i didn't just i
got to be able to actually
really see him and believe you believe these conversations actually are taking
place yeah
whether they are i mean they really are you know i mean in in every way we were
there together um you
know and i think because spike cut it from many kind of different techniques
that we use the performance
i think has it's hard to have a perspective but has it it's it's present but it's
also it it's not
totally human there it has a certain quality to it no you know what it is it's
perfect because there
is that intimacy but there is also the uh electronic separation of the device
which is the the computer
the internet whatever this futuristic thing is that they're living with you
know and and some of
were shot in shanghai is that correct yes did you go to shanghai no i i i've
been to shanghai before
um but not for the no i like i said i did everything in in post-production i
almost fell down the rabbit
hole in shanghai but somebody what does that mean back up what happens what
does that mean what what
does that mean you almost fell down the rabbit hole it's a long story no no we
got plenty of time
well nothing without a real big deal you know i was i used to work for moette
which was a really
wonderful um contract because there was so much free champagne and that was
part of the rabbit hole
of course uh it just gets deeper and deeper and um and i you know it's there's
a real big party
scene in shanghai you know see i didn't i didn't how does that happen i'm
people like to party i don't
know um i mean yeah they just they they they're very enthusiastic big nightlife
there are lots of
like night markets and nightlife and all kinds of music and you know i guess
one glass of champagne
led to another and i almost fell down the rabbit hole but somebody caught me
whoa now this this
sheds a whole new light on chinese behavior
i i thought they were honestly i thought they were uh commies
you're not allowed to say you're not allowed to say that um and that's to me
and then i see shanghai
and it's like oh my god it's the city of the future i don't want to participate
in this conversation
okay but it's a the film is futuristic but not crazy not like 2090 it's it's it's
the near distant
yeah the near distant future and i and spike refers to it as sort of the
optimistic near distant future
so um tell me about your oh i'll tell you we'll talk about that uh when we come
back but that shanghai
i was fascinated by the the city is actually that big and that metropolitan and
that sophisticated yeah
it's pretty it's pretty intense i mean of course the crazy thing about shanghai
is that you take
one wrong i mean you just can't find your way you're totally discombobulated
and it's
so big and so different and um lots of interesting smells going on there yeah
it's a it's a it's a
whole other world it's a whole other world well you get a snoot full of
champagne you go to newark
it's a whole different world god say scarlett johansson ladies and gentlemen
and my apologies to to china
you're gonna hear about that oh will i let's talk about uh joaquin phoenix uh
what a guy
this is in this in this movie and and you you you wouldn't necessarily think he
would be in this
movie on the other hand he's perfect in this movie you know what i'm saying you
see a real
vulnerable part of joaquin which is when you know him i mean i i'd never met
him before i only knew
him from your show um well yeah although i did once actually that's not true i
did once meet him
um several years ago in a restaurant and he had ballpoint pen written all over
his hands and face
i remember and i think he was wearing a suit and tie um he's not like that
anymore no no um he's much
more of a grandma and i wish i knew him then actually that the contract was moet
is it moette or moe it's moette moette uh but he you know he comes on this show
and uh we're playing
the little practical joke he's gonna leave the films and so on and so forth and
and then so he
takes like a they set him down for two years and say okay you're out of show
business you can't do that
and and then he comes back and he starts doing films and you really get a sense
of
quite remarkable actor this guy is he is he's he's an incredibly sensitive i
think hyper sensitive
person and when you meet him you really see that you know everything that he is
incapable of filtering
anything and so ideas even too apparently and he he just you know all of that
comes straight through him
and and and you know that you see that in person then you can see that as part
of his performance
i think that's what makes him so watchable and enigmatic the other thing that i
noticed uh during the
film is uh they have uh and i guess this is the director's decision they have
chosen the futuristic
pants yes the men wear pants that are not quite right and i'm guessing well
they're not i mean i i'm
correct they are they're like big diaper pants kind of that's right they're big
diaper pants hi i'm dave
letterman for big diaper pants are you like me do you always have to go
um but it's uh well let's let's look at a clip here and and then we'll uh talk
uh more about this
who i i would okay what is the clip gonna be i believe this clip is that we are
at a um carnival
and we're on a little bit of a date on of a date now keep in mind this is the
disembodied voice of
scarlett johansson and she's an operating system that's correct and this is now
prevalent in american
culture worldwide culture and they can be friends and company to actual living
breathing humans yes
we have instinct okay let's take a look this is her it opens on friday see what's
happening there
he's falling in love with his os
what what do you uh are you working on a movie right now well i have um captain
america 2 coming out and then we're on to do avengers 2 um
yes the fight continues of course um you know what that movie needs futuristic
pants
we have them they're in the form of a foundation garment
but do you ever get any what are you and your fiancee are you engaged i am
engaged what does the man
do your fiancee um he's in advertising advertising and he's like in the french
advertising um i guess
so yeah french advertising yeah sure i'll bet he speaks english right sometimes
yeah do you speak
french i don't speak any french no i mean i i think all the important words of
course i know what are the
important words in french i'll tell you later
but you you you must learn to speak french or the parisians will continue to be
rude to you
really so you think it'll get better if i start to speak their language well
they hate it when you
try to speak their language and then they they are very disdainful of that
because they can speak english
far better than we can speak french so what am i gonna i'm gonna lose either
way well you'll get so
good at french uh and with you you don't have to perfect it i'm sure that you
know it'll be fine that'll
yeah there's other ways i can charm them i'm sure but um no i i i'm my
intention is to learn french of
course but like he said of course every time i try you know they sort of pat me
on the head and then
just say you know in a just speak english it's way easier we'll get through
this day you know what i've
done with that in any other language if you commit to a question if you ask
them a question like in
germany wo is the bank where is the bank that sounds like where is the bank and
then they start to
respond in german and then you're screwed i don't know i just i just need to go
to the bank i don't
but now is your is your husband helpful are you you're not married are you no
he's he's um just
my financee um he's no he's he's he's very helpful and he speaks very good
english so we don't have
you know between i mean of course i would love when to when you're in a couple
and you're trying
to communicate a complex idea such as you know do you think it's my greatest
gift to unload the
dishwasher every night um it's easier to just say that in english you know what
i mean i mean you know
you could just kind of have those complex conversations is he a nice fellow
this guy
yeah yeah how long have you known him uh why well just i didn't like to know i've
known him for a
couple of years we we've been dating for about maybe a little bit over a year
and a half what's he like
to do is he golf um no um what does he like to do he likes to read um complain
um he's french you know
what i mean uh he loves art um he's very into art and culture and all of that
stuff that's his that's
his main thing well good and maybe when you come back uh we'll meet the man you
never know yeah
well i'm terribly excited about this uh motion picture and as you know nothing
really excites me
it's called her ladies and gentlemen and it's the lovely scarlett johansson go
see it on friday
good to see you god bless you again thank you so much we'll be right back with
john grant ladies and gentlemen
you

Scarlett Johansson's AI Performance In "Her" | Letterman

oh my god ladies and gentlemen i saw this movie have you seen this movie not
yet oh you ought to
go see this movie what a lovely uh piece of work this is and and and doubly
difficult i think for
this woman because as you may not know maybe you do know oh maybe i better not
say well let's well
ask her if you can say it or not yeah i don't want to ruin it i wish i had a
nickel for every movie
i've ruined oh well be a rich man our first guest is a talented actress she's
in a new provocative
film entitled her it opens nationwide on friday ladies and gentlemen here's
scarlett johansson
carlet how are you i'm very good thank you you look wonderful as always tell us
about your
holidays a nice holiday it was a nice holiday um i got stuck in the arctic
vortex like everybody else
and um yeah i just you know i made a snowman um uh lots of hot dogs and
whatever other canned foods
were around people were telling me that you were living part-time or some of
your time in paris is
that that true yes i do i actually um i decided to take the plunge and move to
paris um and uh it's
it's great i love it i mean you know of course some of the um you know the stardust
twinkles worn off a
little bit um now and you know you start to all the things that you thought
were charming before
are just annoying yeah well i don't want to say i'm just defending an entire
nation of people but
like usual but um well they're they're i'll tell you they're lucky to have you
for heaven's sake well
that's what i think of course
no but you know it's it's the little things like um you know i mean of course
when i first got there i
thought that people were not that the whole kind of rude parisian thing was
just like people aren't
rude they're wonderful oh that was before i was a mainstay there and then
people decided that once i
wasn't going away they could just be really terribly rude to me they could
relax and be rude yeah just
be themselves now uh i know very little about uh paris tell us uh which uh arrondissement
around yeah around around i live in the left bank actually which is very nice
yes it's the kind of
artists um is it near the latin quarter uh yes it's close to latin quarter you're
getting warmer
and what do you do there i like to walk around oh it's a beautiful city to walk
around i like to
walk around i mean i i well as i was saying you know people there are ruder now
um and so i i mean
i like to walk around but it's frustrating because well people there don't have
i mean i'm you know i'm
from new york and and i i assume that i'm the best like an amazing walker
because you know i'm from
you haven't seen my mom walk
well i just assume that you know i mean because we're from new york and you're
kind of you know
it's a it's a wonderful dance on the street you kind of avoid and do this you
know it's a it's a
choreography they're both two great walking cities and you're from one of them
yes
right now when i got there i assumed that you know it's kind of provincial town
but people don't
know how to walk here like they don't walk anywhere they walk everywhere and
the fact that they're just
body checking me as they come it's just part you know they're just confused
yeah um but no they're
not confusing now so i just do like a stare down from halfway down the block
and i started getting
really aggressive with people now good for you and i don't care are you with
her ladies and gentlemen
she doesn't care
i'm a superhero for sake this uh you know what i mean this uh now i want to
talk to you about this uh
film her oh my god you got a hold of something here now now uh first of all i
have questions can i say
or should i not say did people know or do they not know you know what you're
talking about i'm scared
i mean you're in you're in the movie you're in the movie yes i am in the movie
yeah but but but
people might hurt themselves trying to find you right can i can i can we say
that the big reveal
is it a big reveal well i don't know i never know what to say just i you know
what to say you're good
with words just say it but she's i'm well you only hear me you never see that's
right that's right
that's right they hire this actress so we only hear her
well now first of all is the money the same
the same as what as if we got to see you um you know what i have to ask my
agent about that maybe
i got cheated out of uh something i don't think making there's a lot of money
in a spike jones
movie you kind of do it for um for the free food now this is this is uh uh
first of all i know nothing
about spike jones have you worked with him before uh i've never worked with him
before i i've uh i love
his work though i mean i've always been a fan of his and it's a it's a whole
new creative process
doing what i did because i did all of my stuff post-production in a studio with
joaquin and with
spike and then sometimes the picture so i never got to see anybody working on
set really right and and
one wonders if for an actor that's more a difficult part of the process but you
you are actually there
with your co-star yes yes but in the film you're not really there with your co-star
you're just listening
and talking back and forth yeah it's it's um it's a different kind of a
challenge because
because i think in some ways you're sort of in a and you're in a very contained
environment and so
everything is heightened in some way and um you're you're hyper aware of your
all your intonation and
all those nuance in your vocal performance and and so it's a different it's a
different kind of a
challenge i'm telling you the result is is amazing and i i don't want to go too
much farther down the
the road here talking about this the the writing of this what a monumental
accomplishment this is for
god's sakes this is an original screenplay it's an original screenplay and it's
spike's first screenplay
and it and it really is um i think incredibly touching and poignant and it it i
think was
as much of a sort of um a kind of cathartic experience for him as it was for
all of us as
actors i think we all got to really dig deep um and and kind of go there you
know and they're promoting
the movie as a guy who falls in love with his computer well that's an oversimplification
it really
is much much more than that but that's how it's being marketed but you take you
take that idea and
you think well really is that more than like an eight minute sketch really an
eight minute skit but
the fact that it sustains uh for two hours it's just a lovely piece of work
thank you i mean i think
because the character uh samantha that i play is um she's a character that
really well she says she's
growing through her experiences and so she she has she's evolving and i think
if she didn't have that
evolution it would be kind of be this one note thing but because she's
discovering herself
and joaquin's character theodore is discovering himself through this
relationship with her and
these two characters are really you know finding themselves in one another um
you know it can really
it's a it's really quite like i said a very poignant love story let me ask you
another technical
question we have a joaquin uh phoenix and we'll get to that goofball in a
minute
uh and then we have have you as the co-star of the film though we never see you
now is the
maybe we've covered this but is the acting the same if it's just your voice or
is it different if
it's just your voice i don't know it's it it feels um it feels very authentic
and of course because
joaquin was kind enough to come in and do the work with me so i didn't just i
got to be able to actually
really see him and believe you believe these conversations actually are taking
place yeah
whether they are i mean they really are you know i mean in in every way we were
there together um you
know and i think because spike cut it from many kind of different techniques
that we use the performance
i think has it's hard to have a perspective but has it it's it's present but it's
also it it's not
totally human there it has a certain quality to it no you know what it is it's
perfect because there
is that intimacy but there is also the uh electronic separation of the device
which is the the computer
the internet whatever this futuristic thing is that they're living with you
know and and some of
were shot in shanghai is that correct yes did you go to shanghai no i i i've
been to shanghai before
um but not for the no i like i said i did everything in in post-production i
almost fell down the rabbit
hole in shanghai but somebody what does that mean back up what happens what
does that mean what what
does that mean you almost fell down the rabbit hole it's a long story no no we
got plenty of time
well nothing without a real big deal you know i was i used to work for moette
which was a really
wonderful um contract because there was so much free champagne and that was
part of the rabbit hole
of course uh it just gets deeper and deeper and um and i you know it's there's
a real big party
scene in shanghai you know see i didn't i didn't how does that happen i'm
people like to party i don't
know um i mean yeah they just they they they're very enthusiastic big nightlife
there are lots of
like night markets and nightlife and all kinds of music and you know i guess
one glass of champagne
led to another and i almost fell down the rabbit hole but somebody caught me
whoa now this this
sheds a whole new light on chinese behavior
i i thought they were honestly i thought they were uh commies
you're not allowed to say you're not allowed to say that um and that's to me
and then i see shanghai
and it's like oh my god it's the city of the future i don't want to participate
in this conversation
okay but it's a the film is futuristic but not crazy not like 2090 it's it's it's
the near distant
yeah the near distant future and i and spike refers to it as sort of the
optimistic near distant future
so um tell me about your oh i'll tell you we'll talk about that uh when we come
back but that shanghai
i was fascinated by the the city is actually that big and that metropolitan and
that sophisticated yeah
it's pretty it's pretty intense i mean of course the crazy thing about shanghai
is that you take
one wrong i mean you just can't find your way you're totally discombobulated
and it's
so big and so different and um lots of interesting smells going on there yeah
it's a it's a it's a
whole other world it's a whole other world well you get a snoot full of
champagne you go to newark
it's a whole different world god say scarlett johansson ladies and gentlemen
and my apologies to to china
you're gonna hear about that oh will i let's talk about uh joaquin phoenix uh
what a guy
this is in this in this movie and and you you you wouldn't necessarily think he
would be in this
movie on the other hand he's perfect in this movie you know what i'm saying you
see a real
vulnerable part of joaquin which is when you know him i mean i i'd never met
him before i only knew
him from your show um well yeah although i did once actually that's not true i
did once meet him
um several years ago in a restaurant and he had ballpoint pen written all over
his hands and face
i remember and i think he was wearing a suit and tie um he's not like that
anymore no no um he's much
more of a grandma and i wish i knew him then actually that the contract was moet
is it moette or moe it's moette moette uh but he you know he comes on this show
and uh we're playing
the little practical joke he's gonna leave the films and so on and so forth and
and then so he
takes like a they set him down for two years and say okay you're out of show
business you can't do that
and and then he comes back and he starts doing films and you really get a sense
of
quite remarkable actor this guy is he is he's he's an incredibly sensitive i
think hyper sensitive
person and when you meet him you really see that you know everything that he is
incapable of filtering
anything and so ideas even too apparently and he he just you know all of that
comes