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Even when critics weren’t so kind to your first album?
SJ: I’ve had plenty of films that were released with mixed reviews. You win some, you lose some, I suppose. My only hope is that the album was actually listened to before it was reviewed.

“Belle & Sebastian,” says Scarlett Johansson, who then goes on to name Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, and the White Stripes, when listing off her favorite musical duos. The 24-year- old actress and musician should be forgiven for her error—the Scottish purveyors of indie-pop currently boast seven members—because, after all, she’s here today to discuss another duo altogether.

With her longtime friend, singer-songwriter Pete Yorn, the four-time Golden Globe nominee (two of those nods came in the same year, for 2003’s Lost in Translation and Girl with a Pearl Earring) recorded The Break Up, an album of harmonious he said/she said tracks loosely inspired by the rapport between Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot. About love and its aftermath, the songs were recorded three years ago, over two afternoons, with little thought given to the outcome.

“When Scarlett showed up,” says Yorn, “we had no idea what was going to happen. We just went with what felt right. I knew a handful of their songs, and had seen some videos that I thought were fun.” This is not, evidently, a passion project on the level of Johansson’s debut album, Anywhere I Lay My Head, her tribute to Tom Waits, whose music she fell in love with at the age of 12. “I didn’t start listening to these recordings until five years ago,” she adds. But despite their casual interest in the famous French musical partners, the collaboration between Yorn and Johansson perfectly captures the playful tenor of their sexually liberated predecessors.

Like Bardot, Johansson has become lauded as an international sex symbol, and had been romantically linked to a swarm of high-profile Hollywood types—until settling down last year with her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds. And like Gainsbourg, whose later life included a slew of drunken embarrassments, Yorn, 35, has been forthcoming about his excessive past, although he summoned the courage to dry out when the rock- star cliché veered too closely to self-destruction. “I’ve never felt tempted by self-destructive behavior,” says Johansson, who quickly shifts the discussion away from any real-life parallels: “The album happened in a very organic way. Pete asked me if I’d like to record with him—it was as simple as that.”

In what ways did the relationship between music and film color this album?
SCARLETT JOHANSSON: I never thought of this as an actor-and-musician collaboration. It was merely a project between friends. Perhaps Pete felt differently—he had such a strong idea about what the duets should be.
PETE YORN: The Serge-and-Brigitte thing is really loose, not much more than a guy- girl concept. It really could have been Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. Thinking back on it, my work with Natalie Maines on “The Man” might have been the initial catalyst for wanting to make a record with a female perspective.

What is it about Gainsbourg and Bardot that makes them so iconic?
SJ: I just enjoyed the ambiance of the sound—perfect for winter in New York.
PY: It was more of a feeling I got when I thought of them, the vibe that Brigitte seemed to bring to the table. It made me think of Scarlett.

Bardot once defined what it meant to be a sexy, spirited, cultured woman. Is she someone you admire?
SJ: I don’t know that I have a fully formed opinion about who exactly I look up to. There are actors, however, who encompass that sort of spirited quality: Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood and Bette Davis. A varied group, I know, but all equally strong, sensual and feminine performers.

Where do you mine inspiration from when conveying heartbreak, when you’re happily partnered in a relationship?
PY: I seem to be able to feel or tap into all emotions at all times. If I’m happy in a situation, and I want to go the dark side, I just remind myself how fleeting that happiness will be for me. Anyway, I’m usually led there naturally.
SJ: Past relationships, I suppose.

In what ways has your music evolved on this project?
SJ: The singing voice on Break Up is very different from the vocals on Anywhere I Lay My Head. On the Waits covers album, the register is much lower, and the songs are grittier and sort of dreamlike. Break Up gave me the opportunity to harmonize.
PY: In a weird way, this record reminds me of my younger self, maybe because of the way it was made, back in someone’s garage without outside influences or expectations—just innocent fun.

Do you normally try to shut out critical reception?
SJ: I’ve never been one to focus on reviews. I’m as guilty as the next person when it comes to critiquing music and film—I always think my opinion is the most thoughtful. I realize, of course, that’s not the case, so I guess I put just as much faith in everyone else’s critical reception as I do my own, which is to say that I understand that each person is entitled to their own opinion.

Even when critics weren’t so kind to your first album?
SJ: I’ve had plenty of films that were released with mixed reviews. You win some, you lose some, I suppose. My only hope is that the album was actually listened to before it was reviewed.

Scarlett, when working on your solo album, you said, “There wasn’t anybody asking if we wanted lattes.” What about this time around?
SJ: Well, there was that time I asked Pete for gum…

How does the pressure of live musical performance compare to appearances in front of the camera or on a red carpet?
SJ: I have terrible stage fright. I’ve never had to sing in front of a live audience, other than some back-up vocals. It seems incredibly revealing, very different from making a red-carpet appearance, where the glitz and glamour of movie stardom can mask any sort of insecurity.

What is the most significant compliment you’ve received for your work?
SJ: Having David Bowie agree to sing on Anywhere I Lay My Head—after hearing it.
PY: While listening to track 11 on one of my records, Bono said, “I keep waiting for you to drop the ball, but you’re not dropping the ball!”

If you could wear anything onstage, what would you choose?
SJ: I’d dress like a character from The Dark Crystal.
PY: If I was getting weird, I’d wear something furry, like a costume from the Banana Splits or that dude in the hotel room in The Shining.

How much of what you’re wearing helps you get into performance mode?
PY: Sometimes my black leather boots help me snap into it, for sure. I have terrible stage fright. Live performance is very different from the glitz and glamour of movie stardom, which can mask any sort of insecurity.

Also I would like to show you another site where you will always find the latest on our girl, it’s a blog in spanish but a very complete one:

Scarlett Johansson Archive
{ http://scarlett-johansson-archive.blogspot.com/ }

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- Movies: Iron Man 2 > Production Stills
- Public Events: 2009 > Rehearsing for ‘Le Grand Journal’
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- Public Events: 2009 >  ‘Break Up’ Press Conference in Paris
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- Other Projects: “Break Up” By Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson > Album Covers

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One muted winter afternoon in 2006, Pete Yorn awoke from a sleeplike trance convinced that recording a duets album with Scarlett Johansson would save him. Unlike most people who have this thought, Yorn actually had the actress’s number. The two were acquainted through Yorn’s brother, an entertainment lawyer Johansson has worked with since she was a teenager. So Yorn texted her. Johansson hadn’t yet recorded or even announced her own 2008 album, the slight but likable Anywhere I Lay My Head, a collection of Tom Waits covers. But it turned out to be an opportune moment for both.

Yorn—a singer-songwriter who broke out in 2001 with the CD musicfor themorningafter—had been touring nonstop for months behind his 2006 album, Nightcrawler, and was having a tough time reentering normal life. Johansson was weathering the transition from indie ingenue to grown-up movie star. Though she wasn’t feeling as emotionally vulnerable as Yorn, they shared a common sense of being in between stages in life. Both were restless, had time on their hands, and were ready for a new challenge.

In the early weeks of January 2007, the pair met at an unassuming studio in Los Angeles and recorded Break Up, a collection of boy-meets-girl-girl-ruins-boy duets in the tradition of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, and Lou Reed and Nico. Intuition spawned the idea and improvisation fueled the album’s production; Yorn, 35, and Johansson, 24, felt the magic would come from the willfully haphazard way it was recorded.

Nearly three years, two solo albums (one his, one hers), a Woody Allen movie (hers), and a wedding (also hers) later, and Break Up is finally coming out (September 15 on Atco; the first single, “Relator,” was released in May, on vinyl and iTunes). The result—a delicate, elegiac album of jangly country-tinged songs about love gone wrong—is like the perfect mix tape for anyone haunted by an ex.

This record was inspired by a dream?
PY: Sort of. I was home in Jersey for Christmas break after touring, and I just freaked out. I had all this anxiety, and I wasn’t sleeping. One afternoon, I curled up on the bed, trying to pass out. I was jolted awake by one of those Oh my God, I left the oven on or I’m late for school feelings. Except it was I gotta make a duets record. This quick flurry of thoughts came together over a few seconds: Duets record, yeah! Guy-girl thing, yeah! Serge Gainsbourg, Brigitte Bardot—they’re cool, I love them … Brigitte Bardot … Scarlett Johansson! Just a total chain reaction.
SJ: I don’t even think he knew that I could sing. I think he asked me after I said I would do the album.
PY: I had a phone number for her from a few years earlier. I texted her not even knowing if it was still her number.
SJ: It didn’t strike me as strange to get his message. I hadn’t spoken to him in a long time, but we’ve always had a friendship where we catch each other every few months and it’s like no time has passed. That said, we had never talked about music.
PY: She hit me back like, “That sounds cool. Let’s do it!” Then I was like, um, now what? Before you knew it I was writing songs and we were in the studio making the tracks. Two months later, we had Scarlett come in for two afternoons.

Scarlett, at that point you hadn’t made a record before. What gave you the confidence to step into a recording studio?
SJ: I’ve been singing for my whole life. When I was a kid I wanted to be on Broadway—I was a real jazz-hands kind of girl.
PY: Her voice is like mine—it’s not technically perfect, it’s quirky.
SJ: It sort of happened by fluke that we could actually sing together.
PY: When Scarlett came in, she gave the album a huge presence without even trying. She played the part of the female perspective in the songs—she brought an aloofness I hadn’t accounted for.

Did Pete send you the songs as he wrote them?
SJ: No, I had no idea what the songs were going to sound like when I got to the studio.
PY: The album cover is a photo my cousin took of me showing her a song right before we recorded it. If she wasn’t singing and I wasn’t singing, that’s what we were doing, sitting there with the guitar, like, Okay, here’s the song. Learn it.
SJ: A lot of the work we did was just collaborating on the harmonies. Finding them and figuring out who would sing which piece. I didn’t expect to sing “I Am the Cosmos” by myself. But Pete preferred it with a female voice, so that became a bit of a solo.
PY: She ended up having a deeper voice, so I took a lot of the light, higher stuff.
SJ: Pete had mentioned the Serge and Brigitte recordings, and I had my own idea that it was Nico-ish, but it wasn’t like we talked it all through. The songs are quite literal, so we weren’t trying to find the meaning in them; the meaning is very much there.

Musically, Break Up is more lovelorn Americana than pouty French pop. Is it meant to be pure homage?
PY: This record is like two innocent kids compared to that classic, sexy French shit. Never in my dreams would I want to suggest that we could pull off that level of sensuality.
SJ: Pete has so uniquely captured that sixties-French-pop period without it being retro. When you listen to music that’s “inspired” by a certain era, more than hearing the inspiration you hear a bad impression. This album is more of a valentine to that period than an imitation.

You made Break Up nearly three years ago; why wait so long to release it?
PY: I went on tour. She did movies. Every once in a while Scarlett would late-night text me: “We’re listening to the record, we love it!” So I’d kind of check it out too and be like, “Yeah it does sound pretty fun.” After living with it for a while, I really love the album. It’s the sound of this one moment in time.
SJ: Absolutely. Both of us were in a transient place. I’ve been working since I was 8 years old, and whenever I have periods of time when I don’t have to be doing anything, where I don’t have any responsibility, it’s in those moments that I live my life. I felt, as the word transient would suggest, in between two places. In between a beginning and an end. And I think Pete also had that feeling of being in between, of being everywhere and nowhere at once.

Any chance fans will be able to hear the songs live?
SJ: I’ve never been one to hawk something. If people demand it, maybe we’ll do a couple of shows in Europe and a couple of shows here. I have terrible stage fright, so it would be a challenge for me, but I’ve got to face that eventually. The album sounds nice out loud.

Did making the album cure your insomnia, Pete?
PY: No. That took a couple of years. Every day in the studio was hard for me—I was in an acute anxiety state. But I surrounded myself with really good people, and there was a power between us that I guess was just bigger than whatever my anxiety was. The odd thing is that when I listen to the album now, it sounds like some of my happiest music ever. When “Relator” comes on, it puts a smile on my face every time—it sounds so fun.

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