Ten years since “Under the Skin,” auteur Jonathan Glazer has reunited with muse Scarlett Johansson.
The collaborative duo first worked together on the 2014 sci-fi noir. Newly-minted Oscar winner Glazer, who recently helmed Best International Feature “The Zone of Interest,” directs Johansson in a Prada advertisement to promote the brand’s Galleria bag collection.
Johansson is captured struggling to recite lines from Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” and “Macbeth” during a screen test. As tensions rise, Johansson’s frustrations give way to a memorable performance captured by the cameras on set, including her crying in exalted relief. The advertisement is mostly in black and white, but shifts to color as Johansson leaves the studio and sheds her actress persona to return to her real life; while carrying a Prada bag, she hails a taxi.
“The campaign is a celebration of technique, an ode to the mechanism of acting as the true motor of cinema – and to the talent of the actor,” a statement from Prada reads. “The still and motion images showcase Johansson as an actor, honing her art — repeating phrases with different feeling and meaning, she showcases the infinite self-transformation that define an actor’s skill.”
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The commercial was shot in New York with Italian creative director Ferdinando Verderi, and is the latest installment in Glazer’s prolific ad campaigns including past brand collaborations with Guinness, Sony, and Apple.
Next, Johansson is set to lead Oscar winner Cord Jefferson’s Prime Video series “Just Cause,” based on John Katzenbach’s 1992 novel. Johansson marks her first major television role with the gender-swapped series that follows a Miami reporter who investigates a presumably closed case after receiving a letter from an inmate on death row who swears they are innocent. Johansson actually starred in the film adaptation of the novel when she was a 10-year-old in 1995, with Sean Connery playing the lead character.
She will also star in and executive produce Apple Original movie “Fly Me to the Moon,” alongside Channing Tatum. Directed by Greg Berlanti, the feature is set against the 1960s space race and features an ensemble cast including Woody Harrelson, Ray Romano, Jim Rash, Nick Dillenburg, Anna Garcia, Noah Robbins, Colin Woodell, Christian Zuber, and Donald Elise Watkins.