Scarlett Johansson Speech: Take Time for Yourself
Learn English with Scarlett Johansson. In 2017, Scarlett Johansson spoke at the eighth Women in the World Summit in New York City about finding that balance in life and asking us to take time for ourselves once in a while. Scarlett Ingrid Johansson is an American actress and singer. She was the world’s highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019 and has featured multiple times on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. In this speech, she also quotes: “Take the time to meditate, take the time to sit down with your coffee or whatever it is you do. Try to envision a goal for yourself and, try to think about what kind of active choices you’re making in your life, take time for yourself. I think that helps, that is empowering.” – Watch with big English subtitles.
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Scarlett Johansson Quote:
“Luck is opportunity meeting preparation.” Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson – FULL TRANSCRIPT:
“Scarlett Johansson:
Hello, everyone. I’m so happy to be here.
Arianna Huffington:
I’m so happy to have you here. So, are you thinking of running for office?
Scarlett Johansson:
Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I think, like I said, I’ve always been interested in local politics. I think that’s where you make the most effective changes in your community. And I don’t know. I would never rule anything out, but I have a very full life right now. And I think that, with a very young daughter and, I have a lot that I want to do still with my career. I can’t imagine that would be a possibility for a long time.
Arianna Huffington:
But, New York mayor, wouldn’t that be great? Local politics.
Scarlett Johansson:
It would be great. I would like to see more affordable housing in New York City, and I’d like to see a greener city. But I also believe that there are, there are people that are, I have certainly, in the past have supported Scott Stringer and his mayoral run. And I really believe a lot in his experience and his platform. So, I think you can infect a lot of change by just by supporting a political candidate and perhaps redirecting the spotlight onto somebody, whose policies you really stand behind. So…
Arianna Huffington:
I have an idea that the third feminist movement has to include going beyond giving us the vote or giving us access to every job and the top of every profession, to helping us change the nature of work and of life so that we don’t assume that it has to be fueled by stress and burnout and being always on. And I was thinking about you in her when you played Samantha, this AI, kind of Siri and the fascination with technology and our addiction to technology and how much this adds to the stress and burnout of modern life. So, I wonder whether both your kind of view of feminism in this era of incredible technological addiction and your own relationship to your devices has changed. For example, let me start with a simple question. Do you sleep with your phone?
Scarlett Johansson:
My phone is off. I don’t ever put my ringer on to the, probably much to the concern of every person that works with me, but I just can’t stand it. I’m not a very, I don’t, I’m not no social media presence. I live quite an analog life. But I do find that my phone adds a lot of stress to my life, and it’s an unnecessary stress because life is stressful obviously, and it’s complicated. And especially, I think when you’re, it’s stressful in general. Right. I find as a working parent, life is, there’s a lot of other added stresses that come along with that where you’re constantly feeling like there’s just not enough of you, you know? And then what’s left for you even, you know what I mean?
So, to then have the addition of not just the availability of information and news, I mean, actually I, at one point, right after Trump was elected, I was getting such panic because I was constantly, I found myself constantly, I would wake up and then I would check, of course, the Huffington post. And then I would look at, political or whatever other sites. And then I’d make my coffee and I would have CNN on. And then before that I’d have listened to NPR, I was manic. And then in the taxicab, everywhere I was at any given moment, I had this newsfeed constantly in my ear, that plus work being constantly, being constantly available for work or constantly, or being able to go down a rabbit hole and look at that a comment board.
And, I mean, it’s so much, it’s just too much, it’s too much. I think if we, there is a responsible way I think to live our lives with technology where we also take care of ourselves, take care of our mental state, give ourselves time and space to be clear in our mind so that we can focus on our own empowerment and focus on our own goals, how we want to get there, take the time to meditate, take the time to sit down with your coffee or whatever it is you do, and not be staring at your thing and not be just absorbing all of this constant information, but actually strategize with yourself. Try to envision a goal for yourself and, try to try to think about what kind of active choices you’re making in your life, take time for yourself. I think that helps, that is empowering.
Arianna Huffington:
Right now, women need to lead the way into changing our relationship with stress and technology, because it’s really driving everybody manic.
Scarlett Johansson:
Yeah. I think it’s; I try to stop myself from, I go wait, do I need to be doing this right now? I don’t, I do not need to be, like going down the rabbit hole of, what the first production of glass menagerie, like that’s okay. I can put that away for a minute. I can just put it away.
Arianna Huffington:
And how has your life changed since you became a mother, which is now two and a half years?
Scarlett Johansson:
Yes. It’s two and a half years. And it is so profound the change, I can’t even begin to summarize it. But it’s just, I think I really enjoy, when I am disconnected from this thing, it really allows me to be really connected with my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. And just, I just love, and I’ve been fascinated also, this idea also in my work as an actor, this kind of paring away of all this noise and kind of return to almost this child state, where you see, with your child, they’re so imaginative and the, this imaginative play that they do, I love to watch her come up with all kinds of stories and games. And, it’s such a magical, magical of course, that word’s so overused, but it’s such an opportunity to really enjoy just life and, and the simple things that, that connect us to one another, this human experience that we share, it’s so wonderful to be able to have this tiny person to, to interact with and share that part of life where it’s been amazing. What can I say?
Arianna Huffington:
And it’s this tiny bilingual person, Rose speaks English and French forcing her mother to learn French.
Scarlett Johansson:
She is. I know, and she doesn’t like it when I speak French for some reason, I don’t know why. She’d go, no, no French, daddy talks that. I’m like, you are a bossy kid?
Arianna Huffington:
I wonder where she took that from. I wonder where she took the bossy part from. Remember, Cheryl Sandberg…
Scarlett Johansson:
Don’t ask her father that.
Arianna Huffington:
We shouldn’t call our daughter’s bossy. We should say that they have leadership abilities. Scarlet. I do wish you had more time, but I just want to thank you so much for being not just a brilliant, amazing, and indeed magical actor, but for being such a wise woman, sharing your wisdom with us. Thank you so much.
Scarlett Johansson:
Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.”[/read]
Scarlett Johansson
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