Blake Lively in New York City on April 27, 2025; Scarlett Johansson in London on Sept. 19, 2024; Justin Baldoni in New York City on Dec. 13, 2023. Credit :

Taylor Hill/FilmMagic; Karwai Tang/WireImage; Dia Dipasupil/Getty

• Scarlett Johansson gave a brief comment addressing the legal drama between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively in her June cover interview with Vanity Fair
• The Eleanor the Great director, who was previously married to Ryan Reynolds, said it was “weird timing” for her movie to be backed in part by Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios
• Eleanor the Great is set to make its debut at the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday, May 20

Scarlett Johansson is addressing the elephant in the room.

In her cover interview for Vanity Fair‘s June issue, the 40-year-old actress discussed her feature-film directorial debut Eleanor the Great and its upcoming premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

The movie is backed in part by Wayfarer Studios, which was co-founded by Justin Baldoni — whose name has been in the news as of late as his legal war with his It Ends with Us costar Blake Lively wages on. Lively, 37, first sued Baldoni in December 2024, alleging sexual harassment, a retaliatory smear campaign and more. (Baldoni, 41, has denied the allegations.)

When Baldoni’s name was brought up in her Vanity Fair interview, Johansson laughed and simply said that Wayfarer “were super supportive throughout the process” of making her own film.

“But yeah, such weird timing,” she added, referring briefly to the legal drama.

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Scarlett Johansson on the June 2025 cover of Vanity Fair. Lachlan Bailey/Vanity Fair

Notably, Johansson was previously married to Lively’s now-husband Ryan Reynolds. The latter is also named in Baldoni’s $400 million countersuit against the couple, their publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s firm Vision PR, alleging defamation, extortion and more.

The philanthropic arm of Wayfarer Studios, the Wayfarer Foundation, announced earlier this month it would shutting down for undisclosed reasons, amid the legal battle between Baldoni and Lively.

While Johansson has not commented on the details of the legal back-and-forth directly, the Jurassic World Rebirth actress gave a rare comment about ex Reynolds, 48, during an appearance on Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop podcast in April 2023.

“We love a good Ryan Reynolds in our house,” said Paltrow, 52, to which Johansson replied with a laugh, “He’s a good guy.”

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Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson in New York City on June 13, 2010. Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Meanwhile, Eleanor the Great will premiere at Cannes on Tuesday, May 20, and stars June Squibb as the title character with a supporting cast of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Hecht and Erin Kellyman.

According to an official festival synopsis, Squibb, 95, “brings to vivid life the witty and proudly troublesome 94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein, who after a devastating loss, tells a tale that takes on a dangerous life of its own.”

Of Johansson, Squibb told Vanity Fair, “I was amazed at how open she was. There’s no playing around. There is absolutely no s— about her at all. Who she is is who you’re getting all the time.”

“I do think she likes herself — I think Scarlett enjoys being Scarlett,” she added of her director. “This is positive, because it allows her to say, ‘This is who I am, take it or leave it.’ I think that’s how she goes through life, basically.”