Scarlett Johansson does not seem the least bit ashamed when discussing her recent nude-photo scandal with Vanity Fair contributing editor Peter Biskind. “I know my best angles,” she says with her trademark insouciance. “They were sent to my husband,” now ex Ryan Reynolds. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not like I was shooting a porno.” She adds saucily, “Although there’s nothing wrong with that either.”

Johansson, who has been active in campaigning for various Democratic political leaders, including Barack Obama, tells Biskind that nearly one term later “we’re all guilty of being idealistic, I and everyone who voted for him.” But in response to being asked if she would work for him again, she says, “It would be irresponsible not to.” She also discusses her friendship with Woody Allen, spawned by their shared tendency toward hypochondria and, subsequently, shared Purell. “He shakes a lot of hands,” Johansson explains. “I’ll squirt some in my hand and then squirt in his.” She also has a bizarre penchant for diagnosing him. “The only reason why Woody and I are still friends is because I’ve diagnosed all kinds of his skin tags, lesions, ailments. I’ve prescribed things for Woody that he’s then asked his doctor to prescribe for him.”

Despite their compatibility, after working with Johansson on several films, Allen decided they should take a break: “I have every intention of working with her again, but I just didn’t think it was a great idea for either one of us to work together too intensely, picture after picture. I didn’t want her to be burdened by, ‘Oh, she’s in all the Woody Allen pictures, it’s so predictable,’ and she’s my new muse, and all that silliness.” Johansson does not share his opinion: “I don’t think anything’s played out. I’m waiting for him to write my Citizen Kane.”

Johansson says that her role in a revival of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge in 2009 opposite Liev Schreiber “completely took me over in every way. I’d spent four months bleeding all over the stage, completely exposed. I felt I was forever changed by that experience. It was unbelievable holding that Tony.” Her emotional and physical exhaustion after the end of the run was compounded by her subsequent divorce from Reynolds. “I didn’t really know what to do with myself. It was such a strange time. There was nothing that was interesting to me. I had a very public separation. It was difficult. I felt very uncomfortable.”

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