Scarlett Johansson: her secret 'The Batman 2' role gave her 'existential angst'

Scarlett Johansson has played a superhero before, but her next one nearly broke her. The actress says her still-undisclosed role in "The Batman: Part II" was "very hard to figure out" and left her with "a lot of existential angst, for some reason."

Johansson opened up to Entertainment Tonight while promoting her upcoming film "Paper Tiger," and she was careful not to give away who she is actually playing in the Robert Pattinson-led sequel. "I don't know why, whether it was just the role or it was just where I am in my life, but it was just hard to crack it," she said. "And that's all I can say about it."

Her casting was confirmed back in May, when director Matt Reeves posted an X message that offered nothing more than a GIF of Johansson's reflection in a car's rear-view mirror from the 2013 film "Under the Skin." She was announced alongside several other superhero alumni in undisclosed roles, including Sebastian Stan and Brian Tyree Henry.

A Batman sequel in flux

The film has already had its share of behind-the-scenes shuffling. Production is now being led by Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh after Reeves, who also helmed 2022's "The Batman," temporarily stepped away due to a personal matter.

Reeves has said the sequel will lean harder into Pattinson's Bruce Wayne after the first film focused on his Batman. "Once you get past the origin tale... then you start telling the Rogues Gallery story," Reeves said last year. "But I never wanted to lose Robert Pattinson at the center of these stories, and so that is really what we set our aim on."

For now, Johansson is keeping her character locked down, but the existential angst is apparently real. Whatever the role is, it sounds like it took more out of her than a Black Widow fight scene.