In the new film, the Avengers alum plays Zora Bennett, a skilled mercenary leading an island mission to extract DNA from dinosaurs for medical advancement. She's joined by brilliant paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) and more.
"When I first got cast, Bryce Dallas Howard reached out to me and was so excited. She wrote me a whole long email about her experience and how wonderful the fans were and how that was part of the excitement, joining the Jurassic family and having these fans for life," Johansson recalls.
The Oscar nominee adds that her Marriage Story costar Laura Dern, part of the original film's trio, "was also so pumped" about her joining the Jurassic ranks.
The O.G. cast also included Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill and Samuel L. Jackson. Johansson made a few Wes Anderson movies with Goldblum; she costarred with Neill as a kid in 1998's The Horse Whisperer; and made Marvel movies with Jackson. "I've worked with, I think, basically everyone [from the original]," she says.
Rebirth costar Bailey, the 37-year-old British actor of Bridgerton fame, says his Wicked cast mate Goldblum, 72, was thrilled for him to take on Jurassic. He told Bailey to "just have a great time," he recalls, adding of the original stars, "They're all just incredible, iconic actors."
Howard, 44, played Claire Dearing in the previous installments. She recently told ScreenRant that she was eager to see Rebirth.
"For myself as a fan, I am so excited for Jurassic World Rebirth. I'm going to be there in the theater opening day, and they have an amazing cast. I mean, Mahershala Ali, Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey. It's going to be absolutely fantastic," she said. "I'm excited. And then maybe in 20 years or something like that, if they ever asked, of course, I would be back in a heartbeat."
Johansson has expressed many times that adding a Jurassic Park movie to her acting résumé has been a lifelong goal of hers. She hopes other kids check out Rebirth and have the same memorable time she had seeing the first movie 32 years ago.
"It's surreal. We'll see how the fans react to the movie. I think as a huge fan of the movie, I'm just excited for Jurassic nerds to see it because I think they'll like it a lot," she says. "I hope that there are other 10-year-olds that have the same experience that I did when I saw the first Jurassic in theaters, where they can just be completely carried away for two hours. It makes you dream."