A financial backer of Scarlett Johansson’s feature directorial debut “Eleanor the Great” asked her to change the film’s Holocaust-centered storyline just one month before production was scheduled to begin.
The financier requested that the main character lie about something other than the Holocaust, the Jewish American-Danish actress disclosed in an interview with The Telegraph published on Saturday.
Johansson said she was “really shocked” and disappointed by the request. She maintained the film’s focus on Holocaust legacy, with Sony Pictures Classics eventually covering the financing shortfall.
The Hollywood star cast Holocaust survivors for her feature directorial debut, entertainment website People reported in September.
The actress-turned-director said that the survivors were selected to “share their stories.”
The movie features June Squibb in the leading role as a 94-year-old woman who moves to New York City after suffering a loss.
“Eleanor the Great” premiered at Cannes Film Festival in May and was released in theaters on Sept. 26.
Johansson, whose maternal family is Jewish, discovered in 2017 that relatives died in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust.
She called out the alarming rise in antisemitism in a recent interview with Israel’s Channel 12 News, discussing concerns that it could lead to physical violence.
