Marcel Winatschek

Twice Over

Nobody had to tell me. I’d arrived at that conclusion independently, somewhere around the first time I watched Lost in Translation and understood that Sofia Coppola had made the most persuasive argument for Scarlett Johansson that anyone would ever make. The quiet intelligence, the way she holds a scene without effort—it’s not a performance of desirability, it’s just what she is.

Esquire wanted it in print anyway, so they put her on the cover and named her Sexiest Woman Alive for the second time. When they told her she was the only person to have won it twice, she smiled and asked, I’m the only one who won this twice? Yes. Deservedly.

At the time the internet was mostly busy with a meme of her falling over at various public events—the kind of thing the internet does, taking someone genuinely remarkable and latching onto a stumble. She seemed unbothered. That’s probably part of it too.