Johansson Watches 'Paper Tiger' for First Time at NYFF — SkimNews
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- Scarlett Johansson reunited with co-stars Adam Driver and Miles Teller at the New York Film Festival premiere of "Paper Tiger" at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, arriving jet-lagged from an international film shoot and telling the audience, "I'm hallucinating… It's 5 in the morning — which is a great time to be doing an interview on stage."
- "Paper Tiger" premiered at Cannes in May, but Johansson missed that screening because she was filming "The Exorcist: Martyrs"; she said the NYFF showing was her first time watching the movie in a festival setting, joking "Don't rub it in!" about her Cannes absence.
- Set in 1986, the film follows brothers whose get-rich-quick Gowanus Canal cleanup scheme draws the Russian mafia; Johansson plays Linda, wife of Teller's character, and Driver said the four leads shared "a mutual admiration" with "no work required" on set.
- Director James Gray kept his opening remarks deliberately brief and recalled his parents' skepticism when he told them he wanted to be a movie director, while NYFF artistic director Dennis Lim introduced him as "one of the great living American filmmakers" and noted the film carries 24 executive producer credits.
- NYFF's 64th edition runs through Oct. 12 and will host world premieres including Luca Guadagnino's "Artificial" about OpenAI founder Sam Altman, Ava DuVernay's documentary "14th," Tony Gilroy's "Behemoth!" with Pedro Pascal and Olivia Wilde, and Takashi Yamazaki's kaiju sequel "Godzilla Minus Zero."
Why it matters: Johansson physically reuniting with her cast at a premiere she skipped at Cannes is a rare promotional moment that doubles as free publicity for a film Gray struggled to get financed; Lim's remark that the film needed 24 executive producer credits underscores how personal auteur projects now require wide coalitions of backers to get made.
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