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Scarlett Johansson Was Offered ‘Sex Object’ Roles ‘For Years’ After ‘Lost in Translation,’ Says Bill Murray Was in a ‘Hard Place’ on Set: ‘Life Has Humbled Him’ Now

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Scarlett Johansson Was Offered ‘Sex Object’ Roles ‘For Years’ After ‘Lost in Translation,’ Says Bill Murray Was in a ‘Hard Place’ on Set: ‘Life Has Humbled Him’ Now

Scarlett Johansson remembered in an interview with Vanity Fair her career getting pigeonholed by “sex object” roles after the breakout success of Sofia Coppola’s 2003’s “Lost in Translation,” which cast a 17-year-old Johansson opposite Bill Murray.

“After ‘Lost in Translation,’ every role that I was offered for years was ‘the girlfriend,’ ‘the other woman,’ a sex object — I couldn’t get out of the cycle,” Johansson said. “It sort of felt like, ‘Oh, I guess this is my identity now as an actor.’ There wasn’t much I could do with that.”

Johansson added that her representatives at the time did not help her try to avoid these roles, although “they were reacting to the norm. The industry worked like that forever.”

“You come into your sexuality and your desirability as part of your growth, and it’s exciting to blossom into yourself,” she continued. “You’re wearing the clothes you want, you’re expressing yourself, then you suddenly turn around and you’re like, ‘Wait, I feel like I’m being’ — I don’t want to say exploited because it’s such a severe word. That term is so heavy, but yeah, it was a kind of an exploitation.”

“Lost in Translation” stars Murray as a fading movie star in Tokyo who befriends Johansson’s college graduate amid a midlife crisis. Johansson would not go into specifics but did say “Bill was in a hard place” during the film’s production, adding: “Everybody was on tenterhooks around him, including our director and the full crew, because he was dealing with his… stuff.”

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Johansson said she never had worked with an actor in Murray’s “headspace” before. The two performers ran into each other earlier this year behind the scenes of “SNL50,” where Murray was in a much more spirited mood.

“He’s such a different person now. I think life has humbled him,” Johansson said, confirming she was partly referring to his behavior on the set of the 2022 movie “Being Mortal” that resulted in the project being shut down. Murray said earlier this year that he gave a woman on set a kiss through a mask, although he maintained he was just being silly.

“Certainly, yes — that was really bad,” Johansson said. “But I also know COVID was a hard thing for him. Life — all these things have led up to him being held accountable for that kind of behavior. But you know what? How wonderful that people can change.”

Speaking of her experience on “Lost in Translation” at large, Johansson added: “I’m pretty proud of how I handled myself. I really just did the work, you know? It’s a good tactic for pushing through stuff. Eyes on the prize.”

Head over to Vanity Fair’s website to read Johansson’s cover story in its entirety.

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Amy Poehler Says ‘SNL’ Actors ‘All Played People We Should Not Have… I Misappropriated, I Appropriated’: Everything in Comedy Has an ‘Expiration Date’

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Amy Poehler Says ‘SNL’ Actors ‘All Played People We Should Not Have… I Misappropriated, I Appropriated’: Everything in Comedy Has an ‘Expiration Date’

Amy Poehler recently took accountability for her problematic “Saturday Night Live” characters while talking to former cast member Will Forte on her “Good Hang” podcast. Poehler said that every comedian who has appeared on “SNL” over the years has “played people that we should not have played” and “the part about getting older and being in comedy is you have to, like, figure out, ‘Oh, it’s like everything has an expiration date.’”

“There was even on [‘SNL50’], when they had that segment which was like, ‘Here’s all the ways we got things wrong,’ and they showed way inappropriate casting for people,” Poehler added. “We all played people that we should not have played. I misappropriated, I appropriated…I didn’t know.”

Poehler was referring to the “SNL50” sketch in which Tom Hanks introduced an In Memoriam segment calling out the many problematic jokes and sketches “SNL” has aired. The montage of poorly-aged bits includes jokes about sexual harassment and such infamous moments as Adrien Brody sporting dreadlocks and a Jamaican accent.

“Even though these characters, accents and … let’s just call them ‘ethnic’ wigs were unquestionably in poor taste, you all laughed at them,” Tom Hanks said in a winking moment at the audience. “So if anyone should be canceled, shouldn’t it be you, the audience? Something to think about.”

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Speaking to Forte on her podcast, Poehler added: “The best thing you can do is make repairs, learn from your mistakes, do better. It’s all you can do.”

Watch Poehler and Forte’s full “Good Hang” conversation in the video below.

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Israel weighs options to destroy Fordow if it has to go it alone without help from the US

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Israel weighs options to destroy Fordow if it has to go it alone without help from the US

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

If President Trump decides not to order a strike on Iran’s main underground enrichment site at Fordow, Israel has a number of options to destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility buried deep under a mountain south of Tehran.

One option includes sending elite Israeli Air Force commandos from Unit 5101, known as Shaldag, which, in Hebrew, means kingfisher, a bird known to be patient and dive deep under water to find its prey.

In September, members of this elite unit surprised the world by entering an underground missile factory used by Iran in Syria.

“There was a site that similarly looked like Fordow,” former Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin told Fox News in an exclusive interview.  “Even though smaller, the Syrian facility produced advanced ballistic missiles, precise ballistic missiles using Iranian technology, as well as Iranian money.”

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AMERICA’S IRAN DILEMMA: HOW TO STRIKE FORDOW WITHOUT LOSING SIGHT OF CHINA THREAT

“There was a site that similarly looked like Fordow,” former Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin told Fox News in an exclusive interview.  (Amos Yadlin)

Israel attacked the site from the air a few times but was not able to destroy the site.

Unit 5101 (Shaldag) used the cover of darkness and diversionary airstrikes to enter the secret site, plant explosives and destroy the complex. Like Iran’s Fordow mountain complex south of Tehran, it was 300 feet underground.

HOW BUNKER BUSTER BOMBS WORK AND HOW THEY COULD DESTROY IRAN’S FORDOW NUCLEAR SITE

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“The Air Force took care of all the guards around the perimeter, and Shaldag got in, and the place is gone, destroyed,” Yadlin said with a slight smile.

It’s not the first time Israel has had to plan to take out a secret nuclear complex against the odds and alone. In 1981, Israel flew a daring mission to bomb Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak.

Yadlin was one of eight young Israeli F-16 pilots who carried out the secret attack.

Amos Yadlin in photo with other pilots

In 1981, Israel flew a daring mission to bomb Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak. Yadlin was one of eight young Israeli F-16 pilots who carried out the secret attack. (Amos Yadlin)

“We didn’t have air refueling at that time. We didn’t have GPS. It was dumb bombs, smart pilot, but a very difficult operational mission when Iraq was in a war (with Iran). So, the state of alert was very, very high,” Yadlin recalled. He and the other pilots believed it might be a suicide mission, and they might not have enough fuel to return home.

More recently, retired Maj. Gen. Yadlin served as the head of Israel’s Military Intelligence in 2007, when Israel blew up a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor that the world did not know about. The White House at the time did not want to assist in the strike. Yadlin has seen history change after Israel has acted alone carrying out daring missions like the exploding pagers that killed most of the top commanders of Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah.

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WHY US MUST DESTROY IRAN’S FORDOW NUCLEAR FACILITY NOW

In 2008, when it was determined that Israeli F-16s could not reach Iran’s nuclear sites, Yadlin ordered Mossad to come up with another way to take out Iran’s uranium enrichment at Natanz. Two years later, Israeli and American cyber warriors introduced Stuxnet, a malicious computer worm that caused thousands of Natanz centrifuges to spin out of control, setting back Iran’s nuclear enrichment.

Amos Yadlin with jet

More recently, retired Maj. Gen. Yadlin served as the head of Israel’s Military Intelligence in 2007, when Israel blew up a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor that the world did not know about.  (Amos Yadlin)

The decision to strike Fordow, the crown jewel and heart of Iran’s nuclear program, is different, and Israel prefers the U.S. to use its B-2 stealth bombers and 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs.

“Anybody who wants the war to be over soon, to be finished quickly, have to find a way to deal with Fordow,” Yadlin said. “Those who think that attacking Fordow will escalate the war, in my judgment, it can de-escalate and terminate the war.”

And it could serve as a deterrent to China and Russia, who will see the power and capability of the U.S. military’s unique capability.

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Another option would be to cut power to Fordow. Without power, the centrifuges enriching the uranium could become permanently disabled.

When asked if Israel could take out Fordow without American B-2 bombers, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox’s Bret Baier in an exclusive interview last Sunday, “We have quite a few startups too and quite a few rabbits up our sleeve. And I don’t think that I should get into that.”

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MAGA is split over Israel and Iran. Which way will Trump go?

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MAGA is split over Israel and Iran. Which way will Trump go?

How did MAGA become Trump’s biggest opponent of a US strike on Iran? The Republican base is split over Trump’s rhetoric about getting involved in another foreign war. Conservative stalwarts like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon are pushing back. Could a US strike on Iran be a blow against Trump at home?

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