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LOS ANGELES - Scarlett Johansson has a reputation as a man-eater.
The actress turned 24 in November and despite her tender age has been linked romantically to an impressive list of famous men, including actors Benicio Del Toro, 17 years her senior, Jared Leto and Josh Hartnett, New York Yankees baseball star Derek Jeter and Grammy Award-winning singer Justin Timberlake.
In 2007 Johansson began dating another Hollywood heart-throb, Ryan Reynolds, who had just ended a five year relationship with Canadian songstress fiancee, Alanis Morissette.
Reynolds was not just another short-term relationship, with the love-crazed couple marrying at a secret wedding in May.
What is not surprising is Johansson's assessment of men. She says she understands them. Well, she understands everything about men except for one aspect.
"Why do they have nipples?" she asks with an innocent smile during an interview in Los Angeles.
"That has always amazed me."
The differences between men and women are explored in Johansson's new romantic comedy-drama, He's Just Not Into You, a film inspired by the best-selling book by Sex and the City scribes Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo.
Johansson is part of an all-star cast including Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Connelly, Justin Long, Ginnifer Goodwin, Kevin Connolly, Bradley Cooper and Drew Barrymore, who also co-produced the film.
Johansson plays Anna, a minx who has an affair with married man Ben (Cooper).
It is the kind of sexy role audiences have become accustomed to watching Johansson, a regular on magazine sexiest lists, play.
"I don't know," Johansson responds when asked if she is comfortable being typecast as a sex bombshell.
"I'm 24 years old and I think I'm in a certain kind of place in my career. Women in their 20s are these whimsy, transient characters and so is life.
"I think women and actors in their 30s take on meatier roles. They play mothers and wives and women who have been through a life before they got to that point.
"I look forward to that time when I will be able to have more life experience to put into those roles. Right now I don't know how I feel. I guess I feel a bit transient and reflective."
Johansson's marriage to Reynolds has been a stabilising force in her life. It appears she was as surprised as the rest of the world that she fell so hard for Reynolds and walked down the aisle with him after a relatively short courtship.
"I never had any preconceived notion of marriage," she explains.
"I never really thought about it much. My parents divorced when I was 13. I never had an idea what a marriage could be or should be. I figured some day I would get married. But, I never really thought about it."
Johansson says she understands where her character's head is at in having an affair with a married man.
"I don't think she has any ulterior motives," Johansson says.
"I think she really likes this guy and he likes her. His marriage is failing and she is ignorant of this other woman. She hasn't really thought 'I would never want someone to do that to me'. I don't think she has really thought that far ahead. She is just taking it for what it is.
"Her girlfriend gives her the advice 'This could be the father of your kids. I heard about this guy who could have missed the boat. Don't miss the boat with this one. Fate has brought you together.' I think she goes with that rather than questioning it. She's not like some home wrecker or something."
He's Just Not Into You explores the mistakes people often make in relationships.
Johansson's co-star Goodwin says she was once guilty of one of the conclusions from the Behrendt and Tuccillo best-seller.
If a guy does not call a woman back after a date or does not put as much into a relationship as she does, he's just not into her.
Goodwin says a guy she was dating did not return her text messages.
She refused to acknowledge he was not as interested in her as what she was in him.
She blamed the lack of texts on her Blackberry.
"I was absolutely convinced my Blackberry chooses who to block because clearly I was getting texts from everybody else," Goodwin laughed.
Goodwin, 30, best known for her role opposite Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile and in the Oscar-winning Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, says starring in He's Just Not Into You opened her eyes to relationships.
In the movie she plays Gigi, a woman who frets when her date (Connolly) does not call her 20 minutes after they part ways for the night.
"It's not when he's meeting you halfway," Goodwin, pinpointing when she knows a guy is not into her, says.
"I think we waste immense amounts of our life making excuses and sugarcoating for ourselves and our friends. It's really very simple.
"I think this movie is very avant-garde because it's so simple and so true. We all really know when someone is just not into you. Right? We just don't want to have to deal with it. Instead of ripping off the bandaid fast we make it worse later."
Barrymore has probably lived more in her 33 years than most people in their entire lives, but she is not as confident about assessing men as co-star Johansson.
"There's a lot I have to learn about men, but there is a lot I have learned," Barrymore says.
"Like their behaviour. If it is not making you feel good or it's crazy and you are trying to decipher it and you think it's the Da Vinci Code, well no. Relationships take a lot of work and it is not mentally and exhausting work. It is really more productive work.
"Women love to obsess and dissect and analyse. Obsess is such a negative word, but we care voraciously about how to make love work. How to find it and how to maintain it. I don't find any crime in that.
"I think some women can go overboard. Hopefully this movie and our sane friends will stop us from crossing that line."
- AAP
