Scarlett Johansson is Ashley Parker, Sam’s teenage daughter. One of her scenes marks a pivotal point in the film, the moment when people finally realize what they’re up against. She is cornered in her bedroom by a giant spitting spider and literally glued to the wall by its webbing. Though nonplussed by ordinary spiders in her daily life, Johansson says vividly of the onscreen experience, "being covered with that goo was the most disgusting, awful thing I’ve ever done in a film. It was cold and slimy and wet."
Playing her younger brother in the scene, Terra concurs, saying, "That stuff was horrible. It got all over everything. It’s still on my shoes."
Devlin credits Johansson with bringing the necessary substance and likeability to her character, which is essential so that "when she’s in jeopardy you really find your heart thumping in your throat. Scarlett has enormous depth as an actress and yet she’s willing to do crazy scenes with spiders. You’re not going to find a lot of actresses like that."
Johansson, who previously worked with Robert Redford on The Horse Whisperer, was especially impressed by the teamwork she witnessed between Elkayem, Emmerich and Devlin during production. "They were all on the set, brimming with ideas for one scene or another," she says. "Sometimes they wanted to go off in three different directions but the remarkable thing is that they never got in each other’s way."
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