Scarlett Johansson Exposes Odd Film Note She Got For Her Directorial Debut: Swap the Holocaust Lie for Something Else
Scarlett Johansson has opened up about a surprising moment during the early stages of making her first movie as a director, “Eleanor the Great.”
According to an interview she gave to The Telegraph, one of the financial backers questioned a key part of the story and asked if the main character’s lie could be about something other than the Holocaust.
Johansson said this request felt very strange. She explained that normal production notes are usually practical, like shooting locations or deadlines. She told The Telegraph, “I mean, if they’d said ‘I’ll only back this if you shoot in New Jersey,’ or ‘We need to get this done by the spring,’ then that would have been one thing.” But she said this note went directly against what the movie was meant to explore.
As she put it, “They were objecting to what the film actually was. It had to be about what happens when someone gets caught in the worst lie imaginable; if not the Holocaust, then what could it be? They offered no alternative. It was just, ‘This is an issue.’”
When the backer pulled out, a large part of the budget disappeared. Johansson told the British newspaper that she was shocked after months of planning with them. “We’d been talking about the film for so many months, and then this was the outcome? It was really shocking, and I was so disappointed.” She added that Sony Pictures Classics later stepped in as the distributor and helped cover the missing funding.
First trailer for Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut ‘ELEANOR THE GREAT’, starring June Squibb and Erin Kellyman
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) August 12, 2025
The film follows an elderly woman who makes an unlikely friendship with a young student in NYC
In theaters on September 26. pic.twitter.com/xpIhtwfyf1
Johansson also talked about how her own background played a part in wanting to make the film. She said, “If I wasn’t Jewish, would I have known how to do this [movie]? I don’t know. But that was a factor in me wanting to do it: I knew this world, and I knew versions of Eleanor.”
“Eleanor the Great” stars June Squibb, who is 95 and Jewish. The movie follows her character, Eleanor Morgenstein, as she tries to rebuild her life in New York after losing her best friend Bessie. Feeling lonely, Eleanor joins a support group for Holocaust survivors at a local Jewish community center. When the group asks for her story, she ends up sharing Bessie’s story and pretending it is her own.
The film had its world premiere at the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival on May 20. It was released on September 26. The movie received mixed reviews from critics, currently sitting at 66% on Rotten Tomatoes.