Scarlett Johansson didn\u2019t sweat making her directorial debut. In fact, the actress-turned-filmmaker laughed her way through the production of \u201cEleanor the Great\u201d as the stresses of crafting the film on a tight budget in New York City became so great as to be funny \u2014 including a moment when Johansson mistook an ancient sculpture for a Home Goods item and tried to place it in her scene.<\/p>\n
Before the movie, about an elderly woman (June Squibb) who forges an unlikely friendship with a 19-year-old college student (Erin Kellyman), is released theatrically by Sony Pictures Classics later this month, Johansson and her cast visited the Toronto International Film Festival where they spoke with TheWrap\u2019s Steve Pond about the making of the film.<\/p>\n
More from TheWrap<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI really loved all aspects of it, even the complicated ones,\u201d Johansson said of her debut feature as a director. \u201cWe laughed a lot on set. My producing partner and our associate were with me every day, and we laughed all day, especially because we have such a tight schedule and with the budget we had to be so efficient with everything. A lot of things that could be stressful are also hilarious, because the circumstances are like, Oh, this is what we\u2019re dealing with.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Johansson said that shooting in New York could be unpredictable too. \u201cWe had so many funny, weird moments,\u201d she said. The production was looking for a centerpiece for a table and they couldn\u2019t find any. They were shooting in a school facility. Johansson said someone on the production spotted what looked like a sculpture, tucked away in the back of the facility, that \u201ccould be in the middle of this giant table in the assisted living facility that Eleanor ends up living in.\u201d The production carted it out and put it on the table. \u201cIt was dusty and old but it looks good,\u201d Johansson remembered. \u201cThen we came to understand that it was from the Ming Dynasty, this ancient artifact that everyone was freaking out about. I was like, \u2018Quick, shoot it.\u2019 I was thinking it was from Home Goods. Things like that are so funny.\u201d<\/p>\n Squibb is having a quite a time, who between \u201cEleanor the Great\u201d and last year\u2019s \u201cThelma\u201d is one of Hollywood\u2019s hottest leading ladies \u2013 at the age of 95. When Johansson asked her, \u201cHow\u2019s the competition?\u201d Squibb shot back, \u201cNot much. They\u2019re all dead.\u201d Squibb continued: \u201cNo, it\u2019s great. I had no idea that this would happen, but it\u2019s wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Scarlett Johansson Mistook an Ancient Artifact for \u2018Something From Home Goods\u2019 While Shooting \u2018Eleanor the Great\u2019 in NYC<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sg.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scarlett Johansson didn\u2019t sweat making her directorial debut. In fact, the actress-turned-filmmaker laughed her way through the production of \u201cEleanor the Great\u201d as the stresses of crafting the film on a tight budget in New York City became so great as to be funny \u2014 including a moment when Johansson mistook an ancient sculpture for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1956684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[365639,339789,305526,365640,363185,318702],"class_list":["post-2005442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-home-goods","tag-june-squibb","tag-scarlett-johansson","tag-sony-pictures-classics","tag-steve-pond","tag-toronto-international-film-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Ryan-Reynolds-Dwayne-Johnson-Tessa-Thompson-and-More-Set-Panels.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2005442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1956684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2005442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2005442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2005442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n