Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson has opened up about the complexities that can come with dating someone who isn’t part of the entertainment world. In a candid conversation with Stranger Things and Thunderbolts actor David Harbour for Interview magazine, the Avengers star reflected on how being with someone outside the industry can bring unexpected challenges.
“I’ve had serious relationships with people that were not in the industry, and I found one of the challenges was that the person had no idea of what I needed to do my job,” she said. “Obviously, if I was dating an oncologist, I wouldn’t know what they needed to do for their job. But it’s not so abstract,” the 40-year-old actor added.
While Scarlett acknowledged that no profession is completely easy to understand from the outside, she pointed out that acting often brings unique pressures, especially when it comes to forming emotional connections on set. She suggested that the nature of her job—often requiring close bonds with co-stars—can become a point of friction for partners unfamiliar with the entertainment world.
“I also think it’s easy to create a lot of jealousy when a person is not involved in the industry, because actors by nature are very free-spirited and they create very intimate relationships with people at work,” she explained. “They can be loyal to a partner and also very engaged in all these other kinds of relationships, and I think it can be a blurry line for some people,” she added.
{{/usCountry}}“I also think it’s easy to create a lot of jealousy when a person is not involved in the industry, because actors by nature are very free-spirited and they create very intimate relationships with people at work,” she explained. “They can be loyal to a partner and also very engaged in all these other kinds of relationships, and I think it can be a blurry line for some people,” she added.
{{/usCountry}}Another source of tension, Scarlett noted, is how public-facing an actor’s life can be. “Also, to have a relationship with the public can be a complicated thing for people outside of the industry to understand,” she said.
Scarlett shares her son Cosmo, 3, with current husband Colin Jost and daughter Rose, 10, with ex-husband Romain Dauriac. Her relationship history also includes previous marriages to art dealer Romain, whom she was with from 2014 to 2017, and actor Ryan Reynolds, whom she divorced in 2011.
She and Colin, who exchanged vows in 2020, recently made an appearance at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival to support her directorial debut Eleanor the Great. On the acting front, she was recently seen in Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme and is gearing up for her next release, Jurassic World Rebirth, which will release on July 2.