Hollywood actress-director Scarlett Johansson has shared insights on her feature directorial debut. The actress recently attended the Toronto International Film Festival. She revealed that for her upcoming film ‘Eleanor the Great’, which stars June Squibb as the titular character, she cast real holocaust survivors for the movie to "share their stories”, reports ‘People’ magazine.
The actress, 40, told ‘People’, "It wasn't really ever a question of whether we would cast real survivors. It was more of how we can identify people that would want to participate, could participate. So, we got really lucky”.
She further mentioned, “Every time we would find someone who could participate, it was like, 'Yes, we got another survivor’. I think at the time there were like 250,000 survivors living there. Of course, every year it's much less.
So, we were able to identify [that] it's a community”. As per ‘People’, the actress noted that Jessica Hecht, who stars in the film "was really helpful actually in helping identify a couple of people" for the movie, along with the Shoah Foundation in finding people who were interested.
“I have to say that the whole group was so patient”, she added. She shared, "I don't think anybody in the group had really done a film like that before. They really were just engaged and listening”. The newly-minted director also said that the survivors were eager to "share their stories”, adding jokingly, "They were pretty excited about catering”.
‘Eleanor the Great’ celebrated its TIFF premiere on Monday, September 8. The premiere was attended by Johansson along with co-stars Squibb, 95, Hecht, 60, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Erin Kellyman.
Following a world premiere in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where it earned a five-minute standing ovation, ‘Eleanor the Great’, written by Tory Kamen, is set to bow in theaters on September 26, 2025.