The movie was a left-field hit and offered up Johansson as that rarest of screen presences: the approachable, vulnerable sex symbol.

When the 24-year-old American actress Scarlett Johansson married the 32-year-old Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds in September, the tabloid press didn't make as big a deal of it as you might expect. Though both previously had long-term relationships with other famous people--Reynolds with Rachael Leigh Cook and Alanis Morissette (to whom he was engaged for two full years), and Johansson with Josh Hartnett--no one hinted that the nuptials might have been rushed or that neither was really marriage material. These days, young Hollywood stars have become fairly conservative in terms of morals, and more of them are getting married at a younger age than ever before.

In Johansson's case the event was especially jarring, since she has pretty much been the "it" girl for the past several years. Every men's magazine has placed her on their occasional "sexiest woman alive" lists and film critics invariably mention her pillowy lips and full figure whenever they write about her. Thirty years ago Johansson would have been a true sex symbol but these days stars get to steer their own careers, and Johansson doesn't seem interested, much less comfortable, in the role of the fantasy girl.

This mindset is reflected in the professional choices she makes, reportedly on her own. Since her mother is her manager, it's easier for her to do that, and the list of the movies she's been offered and turned down (Fantastic Four, Mission Impossible III, Superman Returns, V for Vendetta) shows just how much self-control she's capable of. But, of course, it's the movies she did choose that tell the story.

Though she had been acting since she was twelve in and around her native New York City, and costarred in Lisa Krueger's well-received indie, Manny & Lo ('97), Johansson first gained wide attention as the traumatized young girl whose mother seeks the soothing assistance of a cowboy in Robert Redford's The Horse Whisperer ('98). However, it was another indie, Terry Zwigoff's peculiar adolescent comedy, Ghost World ('01), that effectively made her a star. Playing a cynical wise-cracking teenager who understands the pitfalls of adult life long before she enters adulthood, Johansson was cool and funny in a way that made her striking beauty less intimidating.

The uniqueness of the role and the unusual quality of the attention it received would have been a tough act to follow, but Johansson landed an equally quirky part that did even more for her reputation. In Lost in Translation ('03), she played Charlotte, the young wife who tags along with her photographer husband to a shoot in Tokyo where she ends up bored, languishing in her luxury hotel room, until she meets the equally bored but much older movie star has-been Bob Harris (Bill Murray). They form a bittersweet friendship that stops just sort of bittersweet romance. The movie, which also made director Sofia Coppola a star and revived Murray's career, was a left-field hit and offered up Johansson as that rarest of screen presences: the approachable, vulnerable sex symbol.

It's at this point that the young acclaimed actor usually goes overboard into expensive blockbusters and fast living. Johansson avoided both. In 2004 she appeared in no less than four films, none of which were high profile productions but all of which seemed well attuned to Johansson's special charms. In particular, The Girl With the Pearl Earring, in which she played the titular subject of the great Dutch painter Vermeer, showed off both her luminous beauty and her depth of feeling.

Her first true blockbuster was the dystopian action film The Island ('05), which did nothing substantial to advance her career, and she seemed to realize it, complaining to press people that she didn't understand the movie or enjoy making it. Since then she's been more careful, and the big budget movies she's deigned to appear in have usually been notable for their attention to character-driven scripts.

However, what's mainly characterized her recent output is its attachment to one director, Woody Allen. Since 1995, Johansson has starred in three of the famously neurotic director's movies, making her effectively the Woodman's "muse," according to show biz reporters. Johansson plays down the title, and once told an interviewer, "We have a lot in common. We're New Yorkers, Jewish. We have a very easygoing relationship." And that seems to be the bottom line with Scarlett Johansson. She wants her life and her career to be simple and free from the sort of drama and excitement that comes with the usual Hollywood lifestyle. Let's hope she and her new husband can find that kind of peace together.