“How am I feeling? Oh God, I don’t know,” Scarlett Johansson says on a recent call with Vanity Fair. “That’s a loaded question.” With less than a week until Kamala Harris faces off against Donald Trump on Election Day, stars really are just like us—anxiously awaiting the results of the 2024 presidential race.
“I feel cautiously optimistic, I think, whatever that means,” she adds with a laugh. “I hope people remember to vote, are not complacent, and participate. I feel like, if people vote, then we’ll be in good shape.”
Luring voters to the polls is often the biggest battle, says Johansson, a Herculean feat fit for the screen’s premier superheroes. So in recent weeks, the actor formerly known as Black Widow turned to the Avengers group text. “We don’t just rib each other. We also share information about different events or fundraisers,” says Johansson. Over text, she reminded her fellow Marvel Cinematic Universe alumni, “We’ve got a lot of powerful people on this thread, and it would be great to unite…in hopefully creating a bit of a viral moment for Kamala.”
The result of that call to action is a new get-out-the-vote video featuring Johansson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, Danai Gurira, and Paul Bettany, which is debuting exclusively with Vanity Fair. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so many immediate responses from these people,” she tells VF. “Normally people trickle in, but immediately the group was super excited about it.”
Aligning the schedules of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars was daunting. “Everybody is so busy and insanely spread out,” she says. “Chris is shooting a movie in Bulgaria. Robert is currently treading the planks on Broadway. Mark is doing a movie. Danai is canvassing in Atlanta. I was in the Grand Canyon. Don is, I don’t know, probably on a golf course somewhere,” she jokes. “But we were able to get everybody…on a Zoom all together at the same time, which was crazy and hilarious.”
Although Shazam’s Zachary Levi recently referred to Trump’s closest comrades as the “Avengers,” the actual squad is throwing its support behind Harris. In the video, they attempt to craft a punchy catchphrase for the current vice president, riffing on moments from their respective movies—including Iron Man and Black Panther. “It just immediately turned into people trying to one-up each other with one-liners,” says Johansson. “Robert and Mark, they’re bickering like two old ladies. And of course, I’m the person that’s just trying to organize everybody. It’s very similar to what our dynamic is in the films…. It was wonderful to feel like everybody was able to assemble around it, and hopefully it will engage our fans in the process of voting.”
