Scarlett Johansson is in her prime.
In addition to reprising her role as Natasha Romanov/Black Widow in Avengers: Age of Ultron, in theaters May 1, the 30-year-old actress is also a newlywed and proud mom of a 6-month-old daughter. Just four years ago, when her first marriage to actor Ryan Reynolds ended, Johansson was in a very different place in her life.
"Acting is a very strange world to be co-existing in. It's very volatile. There's always going to be the more successful person," she says in Parade's Apr. 26 issue. "It's related to rejection. Because actors, if they're not having success, connect it directly to unpopularity—to the fact that nobody wants them. It's not necessarily true. I'm constantly rejected.[Marriage] takes a lot of work. It takes a man who's not only confident in the love that you have for one another, but confident in what he has going on in his own career. He has to be in a field that's completely different from yours. My husband's also involved in art. What's important to him is the recognition that he gets from his job, and that has nothing to do with my job."
(Johansson never mentions her ex-husband specifically, however.)
Johansson and Reynolds divorced in 2011, and after she had a brief romance with Sean Penn, the actress found love again with French art curator and former journalist Romain Dauriac. The couple wed in October 2014, just one month after welcoming daughter Rose Dorothy. Today, the family divides its time between Paris, which is close to Dauriac's family, and New York City, which is close to Johansson's. "I live a little bit of everywhere. My husband and I and the baby are a little bit nomadic at the moment."
For Johansson, it's important that she and Dauriac have different interests. "We like to go out and go dancing. Other times, we like to sit at home and eat Thai food and watch House Hunters International for four hours," the actress reveals. "And we're interested in each other's worlds. He's interested in my weird, alien entertainment world. It fascinates him because it's so different than what he knows. And I like to go to art openings with him and talk about art and emerging artists with him. That's his passion."
Though she's a world famous movie star, Johansson tries to lead a normal life. "The biggest joy that I have is looking at my daughter. When I'm just hanging out with her and we're doing silly stuff and if I make her laugh, the feeling of joy I have is explosive. If I can make her laugh and she gets a big smile on her face, that's pretty much it," she gushes. "If only you could actually bottle that and carry it around."
Shielding her daughter from the spotlight has been tough, though.
"It's hard," the actress admits. "On the one hand, you don't want to isolate your kids, but you don't want to make your kids feel like freaks: There's this fascination with famous kids, like they're celebrity spawn."
"I have many luxuries of fame, but I make my own bed. I like to buy my groceries. I drive my car. I like to do the normal, everyday things that I've always enjoyed," the Captain America: Civil War actress says. "It doesn't mean that when I drive out of my garage, I don't fear that I'm being followed by somebody, because I probably am. But there's always going to be an adjustment. At some point, you have to take your life back and say, 'You know what? If I feel like picking up my dry cleaning and if someone's going to photograph me doing it, so what?' Part of being with your kids is making them feel as safe and normal as you can."
For more from Johansson, pick up Parade's Apr. 26 issue.