Recently she referred to her hope that the movie might “elevate the genre.” “That’s my goal,” she says to me, and explains further: “The film talks about a lot of tough stuff. It deals with a lot of trauma and pain. And I hope this film is empowering for people because I think Natasha is a very empowering person, and an inspiring person in a lot of ways.

 She has overcome so much, and she’s brave. And so by elevating the genre I mean I hope that it can be both explosive and dynamic and have all that great fun stuff that goes with the genre, but I hope that we can also talk about, you know, self-doubt and insecurity and shame and disappointment and regret and all that stuff too. It has many different things, it’s not just that. But there’s a lot of deep stuff, I think, that drives it.”

At the end of this speech, I say to her that she makes the movie sound like it’ll be really good, but once more Johansson is not completely comfortable with such thoughts.

There’s little sign of anything like that happening soon. In fact, there’s a whole other way in which today’s Scarlett Johansson has been succeeding. I ask her how it feels to be constantly referred to as “the world’s highest-paid actress.”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I guess it feels like a kind of funny fact. When you say it, it sounds unbelievable to me.” She laughs. “Like it’s not true.”

“It’s certainly not a bad thing—it’s a wonderful thing!” Another laugh. “It’s wonderful, because it also affords me the ability to not feel like I have to work all the time. I can take time. Not to take a job just because I need to support myself, which basically every single person in most every industry has to do. I mean, I know what that’s like. So it’s great to have that—it’s a big, big luxury.”

Johansson closes the lid on a fruit salad she has been picking away at while she talked and stands up. It’s getting late and she must get back to her daughter, rejoin the rich unpredictability of real life. “Once you have a kid, I think you have to embrace the unknown,” she says. “Because everything is out of your control, and if you try to control it, you’ll lose your mind.”

Emily Blunt had been chosen for the role, but a few weeks later, she had to decline due to scheduling problems. The part was Johansson’s after all.

“I’m not one to hold a grudge or anything,” she says. “I was super excited about it. And I met with Jon again, and we had a funny conversation about how he had not cast me. But I was excited. I was so stoked.”

It’s hard now to remember how uncertain the success of these films was. “When we went to shoot the first Avengers, I don’t think any of the actors knew if it was going to work,” Johansson says, pointing out that, historically, movies in which different franchises crossed over often hadn’t worked. But this did, building to the Infinity War/Endgame crescendo. 

Johansson said that she found out her character was destined to die just before the Infinity War script arrived. “Kevin Feige called me, as was kind of normal, just to discuss whatever the script was and what was going on. But I think he called me to tell me that. I was surprised, but I also kind of wasn’t surprised at the same time.” She says that the news didn’t jar her: “I think we all knew there were going to be some big losses.”

At that time, she says, a Black Widow movie had been talked about in theory, but not in earnest, and she certainly wasn’t banking on it. “I never counted on that film really happening,” she says. “I never count on anything happening until I’m actually standing at the craft service table.”