Why Scarlett Johansson Asked for Her ‘Thunderbolts*’ EP Credit to Be Removed

Scarlett Johansson isn’t taking credit for Thunderbolts*.

The former Marvel Cinematic Universe actress chatted with one of the Thunderbolts* stars, David Harbour, for Interview magazine, where he congratulated her for being an executive producer on the superhero flick amid her character Black Widow being “all over this movie.”

“I asked to have my credit removed because I wasn’t involved,” Johansson, 40, said in the interview published Tuesday, June 10.

“You hated the movie that much?” Harbour, 50, asked Johansson with a laugh, before the actress — who last appeared in the MCU in 2021’s Black Widow, a prequel released following the death of her character in Avengers: Endgame (2019) joked, “No, you’re just wanting that to be the case.”

“I think you’d be proud of us,” Harbour said, to which Johansson replied, “I am proud of you.”

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While discussing their respective long-term projects in recent years — the MCU for Johansson, and Stranger Things for Harbour — Johansson reflected on the commitment requirements, despite how much her character was (or wasn’t) highlighted in a movie.

“Some of the films that I did for Marvel engaged my character more than others. Like in [Captain America: The] Winter Soldier with Chris [Evans], we were really dynamic,” she told Harbour. “In some of the other films, the cast was so enormous and there was so much plot to serve that you start to feel like you’re a device to move it along.”

For the two-time Academy Award nominee, “If you’re committed to five and a half months of that, it’s like, ‘Okay. I can’t paint my nails, I can’t get a haircut.’ ”

“These sound like silly problems, but your identity is wrapped up in this job for a long time, and if you’re not doing engaging work as an actor, you feel a little cagey sometimes,” she explained.

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What Johansson has been working on includes a starring role in the upcoming Jurassic World Rebirth — as well as directorial debut Eleanor the Great, which just premiered last month at the Cannes Film Festival.

And in an interview with Deadline during the festival, Johansson said she would be open to potentially directing an MCU movie when asked if she would consider helming a major action movie or Marvel film.

“I think the movies that I like that are big action movies also have the human connectivity piece,” said the actress, who first appeared as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in 2010’s Iron Man 2 before becoming a fixture in several more MCU installments.

“Even producing Black Widow and being a part of the production of that, and the development of the story, and the story between Natasha and Yelena … [there is], I think, a way of doing it, a way of maintaining the integrity of the idea of human connection, family, disappointment, all of the things that were themes in [Eleanor the Great],” Johansson added. “Doing it in a giant way in a giant universe — there’s ways of doing that. … So, yeah, definitely, it could be, it would be fun.”