Scarlett Johansson is going to continue to be among the rare Hollywood A-listers who don’t have social media, even when it comes to promoting her upcoming Jurassic World film.
In her Instyle cover story published on Tuesday, the actress revealed that she was asked by the film’s studio, Universal Pictures, to join Instagram amid the film’s July 2 release date. However, Johansson wasn’t interested.
“I mean, even today, I got an email from Universal [Pictures], and they’re like, ‘Hey, would you consider joining Instagram in tandem with the release of Jurassic World: Rebirth?’ [I] get a lot of pressure to join social media,” she said.
She also pegged the question, “Is there a way I could do this and stay true to who I am? It didn’t feel like I could.”
Despite not joining, she does acknowledge the potential from a business angle, having appeared in her skincare company’s The Outset’s Instagram feed. “I’m totally there. It’s funny and fun and minimally invasive,” she explained.
However she notes, “The work that I put out there is all based in truth. That’s the key ingredient. So if I was a person who really enjoyed social media, then I could totally get on the bandwagon. But I’m not. And I think the film will do fine.”
Johansson is not the first Hollywood star to candidly avoid social media. In an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Maya Hawke had discussed how “the line between actor and celebrity has gotten extremely blurry” in the age of social media. She also shared that some producers may cast someone based on their follower count.
“I don’t care about Instagram, Instagram sucks. But just so you know, if you have over this many followers, you can get the movie funded. Well, I want to make the movie, so it’s a really confusing line to walk,” she said when explaining how actors can be cast based on their number of followers.
While working, Hawke recalled speaking with “so many smart directors” about deleting her Instagram, until they inform her why it’s important to have. “They’re like, ‘Just so you know, when I’m casting a movie with some producers, they hand me a sheet with the amount of collective followers I have to get of the cast that I cast so if you delete your Instagram, and I lose those followers, understand that these are the kinds of people I need to cast around you.’”
Johansson will star in Jurassic World Rebirth alongside Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey. The film takes place five years after the events of filmmaker Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World Dominion. Among the limited number of dinosaurs remaining and residing in specialized biospheres, three of the creatures hold the key to a potentially life-saving drug. Johansson plays covert operations expert Zora Bennett, who attempts to secure the genetic material from the dinosaurs but ends up stranded with a civilian family on an island that holds a secret being kept from humanity.