Scarlett Johansson Will Play German Mom Who Saves Jew From Nazis
(JTA) — Scarlett Johansson is in final negotiations to star in a film where she would portray a German mother who is hiding a Jewish girl in her home from the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Variety reported Thursday that Fox Searchlight’s film titled “Jojo Rabbit” is a follow-up to the action comedy “Thor: Ragnarok,” and centers on a young German boy who finds out about his mother’s heroism.
Johansson, who is Jewish, is now on board and the character of the son still needs to be cast.
Taika Waititi penned the script and will produce alongside Carthew Neal and Chelsea Winstanley. Production is expected to start this spring, Variety reported.
In Europe, the issue of rescue of Jews by non-Jews during the Holocaust is controversial. In Eastern Europe especially, government-led projects meant to highlight the actions of relatively few local rescuers has been criticized as designed to prevent an open discussion about the actions of countless thousands who collaborated with the German Nazis in the wholesale murder of Jews.
The film would mark a change of pace for Johansson, who has been focused on action and comedy movies, including last year’s “Ghost in the Shell” and the Sony comedy “Rough Night.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Dive In
-
Fast Forward Chicago man charged with hate crime for attack of two Jewish DePaul students
-
Fast Forward In the ashes of the governor’s mansion, clues to a mystery about Josh Shapiro’s Passover Seder
-
Fast Forward Itamar Ben-Gvir is coming to America, with stops at Yale and in New York City already set
-
Fast Forward Texas Jews split as lawmakers sign off on $1B private school voucher program
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Yes, the attack on Gov. Shapiro was antisemitic. Here’s what the left should learn from it
-
News ‘Whose seat is now empty’: Remembering Hersh Goldberg-Polin at his family’s Passover retreat
-
Fast Forward Chicago man charged with hate crime for attack of two Jewish DePaul students
-
Fast Forward In the ashes of the governor’s mansion, clues to a mystery about Josh Shapiro’s Passover Seder
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.