Back in 2013, Scarlett Johansson was on hand at the Venice International Film Festival to premiere her movie “Under the Skin”.
It did not go well; as Variety reported at the time, the film — in which she played a shape-shifting extraterrestrial preying on unsuspecting Glasgow men — was met with tepid applause and “a smattering of boos” from the audience.
In a new interview with The Guardian, festival director Alberto Barbera reveals that Johansson took the booing far more personally than she may have let on.
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“It was one of the worst screenings I’ve attended; it was the only time the audience booed a film,” he recalled.
“Scarlett was almost in tears,” he added. “I tried to say to her: ‘Don’t worry, in time the film will be recognized.’ And that’s exactly what happened. It’s now a cult movie.”
Barbera is not wrong; in a 2022 poll of film critics, “Under the Skin” was voted the best British film of the 21st century.
