Scarlett Johansson says filmmakers are being ‘muzzled’ by ‘big tech guys’

By Casey Cooper-Fiske, PA Entertainment Reporter

US actor Scarlett Johansson has said filmmakers are being “muzzled” by “big tech guys”.

The 40-year-old Avengers star was also critical of artificial intelligence (AI) in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine.

She told the publication “These are people (big tech company bosses) that are funding studios. It’s all these big tech guys that are funding our industry, and funding the Oscars, and so there you go.

“I guess we’re being muzzled in all these different ways, because the truth is that these big tech companies are completely enmeshed in all aspects of our lives. I don’t know how you fight that.”

Last year, the New York-born star expressed being “shocked” and “angered” at how “eerily similar” one of the voices in ChatGPT sounded to hers, with OpenAI saying it would “pause” the use of one of the voices in ChatGPT after it drew comparisons with hers.

Speaking about AI in general, she told Vanity Fair: “There has to be some agreed-upon set of boundaries in order for AI to not be detrimental. I wish more people in the public eye would support and speak out about that — I don’t know why that’s not the case.”

Johansson will make her directorial debut with Scarlett The Great, a drama starring 95-year-old June Squibb as Eleanor Morgenstein, a 90-year-old Floridian woman who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a 19-year-old student in New York.

Speaking about her openness and desire to speak out, Johansson added: “I love to talk, and I love to listen and share stories and commiserate and open up — I’m a pretty open book, I think, I mean, of course, I’m guarded in some ways — like we all have to be.”

The actor will also appear as Cousin Hilda in Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, which is due to be released in the UK on May 23, and as Zora Bennett in the latest instalment of the Jurassic Park franchise, Jurassic World Rebirth, which will be released in the UK on July 2.