‘Asteroid City’: Scarlett Johansson on One Big Change from Marvel Movies (Exclusive)

Scarlett Johansson and Jason Schwartzman are throwing it back to the 1950s in their new sci-fi, romantic comedy "Asteroid City."

The Wes Anderson film centers on life at a stargazing convention in a small desert town. “Extra’s” Megyn Ryte talked to Scarlett and Jason about the film.

Megyn asked, “When you get a script and you know it's from Wes Anderson what are your first thoughts?”

Scarlett said, “I was just excited to see what the world is going to be. I had a little bit of knowledge going into it, like it's this late 1950s sort of Area 51 kind of vibe… It’s a very much more complex version of that.”

Jason added, “I am a fan of Wes’ movies… to get the script before anything else, I am just excited to see where he is at, what he’s thinking about.”

Megyn asked, “Have you guys ever talked about the fact… you are both in the Marvel Universe and then now the Wes Anderson Universe?” Scarlett said, “I just assume everybody at a table if there's a whole bunch of actors that like at least 85 percent of them have been in a Marvel film.”

Scarlett revealed one major difference between this project and Marvel movies — no green screens!

Johannson said, “He didn’t use any green screen… I remember we were inside the crater like part of the wall behind us had to be green because of the size of like the scope of how big the piece was it didn't fit inside the stage… it was taller and wider but then when they made it later… they made miniatures of that stuff and shoot that. It's never like computer generated,” which is so different for the actress after coming from the “Marvel world.”

She went on, “I remember talking to our editor and I mentioned something about the effects and he was so offended. ‘We don't do that stuff.’ I said but it seems like it would be much more efficient, he was like, ‘Don't use that word.’”

Scarlett added, “Yeah everything is practical. It's all like miniatures and puppets and all like hand painted… it's so neat it's so cool.”

Jason couldn't get over the retro-futuristic set either.

He said, “There are so many people and crafts people… that's my favorite thing of being on a movie. Everyone just doing their thing. What are they making over there? This person is polishing this... The attention to the detail. Nothing is going to be filled in later. It all has to be there on the day.”

Megyn commented, “Jason, I feel like your character is the heart and soul of this film.”

Schwarzman replied, “I think it's one big heart and one big soul that's all sharded off in little pieces and we're all sort of playing a version of this one thing.”

He explained further, “He's a war photographer… a person who's unfazed by everything because he's been in so many traumatizing, crazy experiences.”

In the movie Scarlett plays an actress named Mercedes Ford, who plays an actress in a play named Midge Campbell.

ScarJjo said, “Firstly, when I talked to Wes about it, it was really understanding is this person studied – this is the Mercedes Ford character who plays Midge Campbell – is she an actor, studio person? What has her theater experience been? How is she regarded?”

“And with Midge Campbell it's like what kind of a movie star is this? Where is she in her career? How does she speak? Where is she from? How was she discovered? You know all of that stuff to try to understand how Mercedes – the actor I play in our theater troupe – would approach the actor she’s playing in the play.”