The first time we meet her, she isn’t anybody yet. No name, no past, just a naked figure in a white nowhere, getting dressed for a job she doesn’t understand.
What happens in the opening
About seven minutes in, Glazer drops us into a blank white space that feels like no place on Earth, and a naked woman puts on a set of clothes. That’s our heroine getting ready for work. It isn’t sexual in the slightest. It’s a costume change performed by something that doesn’t yet understand what a person is, which is exactly why it’s so unnerving.
She never does get a name. The film strips out character names altogether, so Johansson is credited simply as the Female. Next stop is a shopping centre for clothes and make-up, and the finished disguise, per the BBC, is a dark wig, red lipstick and a fake fur coat. Then she takes the van out looking for lonely men.
Johansson told ABC News she weighed whether the nudity was “a vanity project, or is this an important part of this character’s journey to self discovery.” This is where that journey starts.
Her shadow on a motorbike is Jeremy McWilliams, a championship road racer, hired because the part needed someone who could ride the Highlands fast in bad weather. Glazer spent over a decade on the film, once drafting an effects-heavy version with Brad Pitt, before cutting every scene she wasn’t in, a process he likened to “a big, extravagant rock band turning into PJ Harvey.”
It’s third among every Scarlett Johansson scene worth your time. The same alien meets her own reflection later in the mirror scene.
Film: Under the Skin (2013) · Venice world premiere, September 3, 2013; UK (StudioCanal) March 14, 2014; U.S. (A24) April 4, 2014 · directed by Jonathan Glazer · Scarlett Johansson as the Female
All Scarlett Johansson scenes
1Mirror Scene Under the Skin (2013)- 2Void Walk Under the Skin (2013)
- 3Now watchingOpening Under the Skin (2013)
- 4The Slip A Good Woman (2004)
- 5Rain Scene (no nudity) Match Point (2005)
- 6Darkroom Kiss (no nudity) Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
Back to the hub: Scarlett Johansson nude: every scene, ranked.