Scarlett Johansson says the idea of directing stopped feeling abstract the moment she watched Robert Redford run a set.
In a recent interview tied to her feature directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, Johansson reflected on her experience as a child actor on Redford’s 1998 drama The Horse Whisperer—and the way his on-set presence quietly reframed what she thought her own future could look like.
Johansson recalled seeing Redford switch gears between intimate actor-to-actor conversations and the broader logistical demands of directing.
That duality—being emotionally present with a performer and then immediately coordinating the mechanics of a large production—made the directing job click in real time. She described realizing, on that set, that directing seemed like the kind of work she wanted to pursue someday.
What stuck with her most wasn’t a single dramatic speech or grand lesson. It was Redford’s patience. Johansson said he consistently made time to talk through her character’s emotional state and the “beats” that led into each scene, creating a sense of space rather than pressure—an approach she characterized as unusually calm and generous for a film set.
That’s also the trait Johansson says she carried into her own directing process. Speaking with PEOPLE at the Eleanor the Great premiere, she said she tried to hold onto the feeling Redford gave her as a young performer: even when production is moving fast (as it always is), the actors shouldn’t feel rushed.
Johansson’s comments arrived amid renewed attention on Redford’s legacy following his death on Sept. 16, 2025, at age 89, as reported by the Associated Press.
In addition to his acting and directing career, Redford was widely credited with building infrastructure for independent film through the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival—an ecosystem Johansson explicitly pointed to when talking about how his influence extended beyond any single project.
Now, with Eleanor the Great, Johansson is stepping into the role she once watched from the sidelines.
In an interview with The Credits, she described directing as something she’d wanted to do since she was younger, but only felt ready to take on at this stage—adding that she didn’t think she could have done it a decade earlier. The film was scheduled to open in select theaters on Sept. 26, 2025, according to that profile.
For Johansson, the through-line is clear: the director she became is shaped, in part, by the director she met early—one who treated performance like a craft worth protecting, not something to rush through just to make the day.
