Scarlett Johansson and Topher Grace, Tinseltown's Rising Stars Talk to Teen Vogue

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A F HOME INTERIORS & GIFTS AND EM BOEHM GROUP PHOTO HOME INTERIORS & GIFTS AND EM BOEHM GROUP PHOTO From left to right: Steve Miller, chairman & president, SLM Discovery Ventures, Inc.; Tony Apollaro, vice president and general manager of EM Boehm, ...

    NEW YORK, Jan. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Scarlett Johansson and Topher Grace make
 the perfect couple -- that is, in their latest movie -- In Good Company.
 Johansson and Grace are two actors of their generation who are setting a new
 standard -- one committed to acting excellence and NOT the pursuit of fame.
 Johansson and Grace sat down with Lauren Waterman to talk about their careers
 and their film In Good Company.
     (Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050105/NYW203 )
     Grace has been on That 70's Show for seven years and is quietly emerging
 as the show's most likely-to-succeed actor. In his latest movie In Good
 Company Grace cements his status as a new leading man. But, who is he and why
 don't we know who he's dating? Grace likes to leave the tabloid headlines to
 his TV co-stars, "Not being in the tabloids is a kind of trick. Like a weird
 game of hide and go seek." He admits to being a homebody, a "board-game dude"
 who has a weekly Monopoly night. "I never talk about my personal life," he
 says, "because I don't want people to know what I'm all about; I want them to
 bring their own ideas to what they're watching. That's what being an actor
 is," he insists. About his careful career choices Grace acknowledges, "When
 you're on TV you only get one chance to make that move [to film]. I'm as proud
 of the eight bad movies I passed on as I am of Traffic, the first film I
 actually did." "A lot of people want to become famous as fast as they can," he
 notes. "But, I'd rather take my time."
     When talking about Johansson, Grace says with admiration, "Scarlett's
 style is sort of to do the opposite of what other actresses her age might do.
 She has a commitment to being very real." It's true. But, Johansson is just as
 committed to being real -- as she is to her job as an actress. She has been
 working a break-neck schedule working on back-to-back films and dismisses it
 dryly with, "It's not like I have kids." The hard working attitude of this New
 York native might be because she has been working to get to this point since
 she was a kid. "I was one of those singing and dancing Broadway kids. I wanted
 to be Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis, or Rosalind Russell in Auntie
 Mame," she remembers.
     Even in adolescence Johansson possessed the smoky voice, the talent, and
 the preternatural sophistication that allowed her to ably embody, at 18, an
 alienated wife in Lost in Translation. Though she insists that she "has always
 taken rejection really well" it doesn't look like it is something she will
 need to get used to. In addition to In Good Company, she's also in the current
 A Love Song for Bobby Long -- she calls the offbeat indie, in which she acts
 opposite John Travolta, "a dream come true." And her list of upcoming projects
 is as long as it is varied: period drama, sci-fi mystery, Mission Impossible
 3, and a Woody Allen film. Johansson adds, "I'd also love to make a really
 scary horror movie, and I want to direct, really, as soon as possible."
 
     The February issue of Teen Vogue is on sale in New York and Los Angeles on
 January 5th and nationwide on January 11th.
 
 

SOURCE  Teen Vogue