I don't think there's any kind of preparation for sudden celebrity. I think you almost have this slight nervous breakdown when that kind of media attention happens. I mean, you're doing the same kind of thing that you do all the time, only you have to make these weird adjustments. Like, you're buying a slice of pizza and somebody's outside photographing you which is weird - that's not normal! It's very uncomfortable.
Interpretation
Sudden fame can be overwhelming and discomforting, requiring adjustments to everyday activities.
In this quote, Scarlett Johansson reflects on the unexpected challenges that come with sudden celebrity. She shares her personal experience of how normal activities, like buying pizza, become invasive due to media attention, highlighting the uncomfortable reality that accompanies fame and the adjustments one must make to cope with this new level of scrutiny and disruption in daily life.
In practice
In a discussion about the effects of fame on mental health, you might use this quote to illustrate the unexpected pressures of public life.
Well, you put a little piece of yourself into every character that you do. Even if you're playing some psychotic person, which of course I'm not, some part of you is in that character and it's hopefully believable. I always come back to the fact that my own instinct is better than something I build in my mind.
I don't want to be the ingenue anymore. It's nice to be glamorous, but I don't want to always be an object of desire. Because it doesn't last.
We wandered in a frenzy and a dream (301).
It's strange. You never start out life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat and a thief. Or a liar.
All life events are formative. All contribute to what we become, year by year, as we go on growing. As my friend the poet Kenneth Koch once said, You aren't just the age you are. You are all the ages you ever have been!
Now for a good twelve-hour sleep, I told myself. Twelve solid hours. Let birds sing, let people go to work. Somewhere out there, a volcano might blow, Israeli commandos might decimate a Palestinian village. I couldn't stop it. I was going to sleep.
Life is a train that stops at no stations; you either jump abroad or stand on the platform and watch as it passes.
Life has to be everything. It can't be all sad. It can't be all peaches and cream. Because the lows have you appreciate the highs. And the highs give you perspective on the lows. If it's not everything, it becomes flat or mundane.
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