Scarlett Johansson’s Family Surprised By Her ‘Today’ Show Guest Host Gig: ‘I Cannot Believe It’

Scarlett Johansson‘s childhood dream of hosting a morning show is one that not many of her loved ones knew she had.

“I can’t believe it,” exclaimed the actress, 40, as she stepped in as Jenna Bush Chin‘s co-host on the Tuesday, January 21, episode of Today with Jenna and friends. “And more importantly, everyone in my life can’t quite believe it either. … The people who knew me very well said, ‘You’re living your dream. I’m so happy for you.’ The people who didn’t know me that well said, ‘What’s going on? Are you okay?'”

Johansson noted that as a child she would see herself “in the mirror with a bottle of shampoo and I’d say, ‘Good morning, everybody, and I hope you had a wonderful weekend. What’s going on in your neck of the woods?’ All that.”

While Johansson wanted to be one Today host, Bush Hager, 43, wanted the opposite. “Your life was my dream. I wanted to be a Broadway star, but I wasn’t talented,” she told Johansson, who previously appeared on Broadway in the plays. View from the Bridge and Cat on a hot tin roof. “I wasn’t talented. I can’t sing, for one thing, but my mom would drive me to try out Les Misérables even though I was kind of a fat Texas (kid.) … Not my vibes.”

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Johansson is the fifth celebrity to join Bush Hager Jenna and friends follow Hoda Kotb‘s exit from Today earlier this month. Taraji P. Henson, Eva Longoria, Keke Palmer and Michelle Buteau took on cohosting duties last week, while Johansson will sit alongside Bush Hager through Friday, January 24.

To celebrate Johansson’s first day in the role, she and Bush Hager got to know each other through a game of “Best Friends Five”. When asked if they are an early bird or a night owl, Johansson revealed that her late-night tendencies made it difficult for her to wake up that morning.

“My phone was on silent, which was really cool. I hardly slept a wink last night because I was like, ‘Oh, God. My alarm isn’t going off,'” she explained. “And then, at one point, I was like, ‘I’ve got to rest,’ and then I rested a little bit. And then I woke up to pee and I was (like), ‘Why is it daylight outside?’ And that’s how I woke up this morning, so I rushed here. But I’m a night owl and an early bird because I have two kids and that’s how it goes.”

While answering whether they prefer to receive flirty texts or love notes, Johansson got jealous when Bush Hager said that her husband, Henry Hager“sometimes” writes her romantic letters. “I feel plastered,” she laughed, joking with her husband, Colin Jost.

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While Bush Hager said the two could talk to Jost, 42, about it, Johansson added, “I don’t even want to tell you what kind of emojis I get.” (The couple, who married in 2020, share son Cosmo, 3. Johansson shares daughter Rose, 10, with ex-husband Romain Dauriac.)

Johansson previously managed to fulfill her Today host’s dream by participating Al Roker for his forecast after a November 2024 interview on the show. “I’ve been directed by Scarlett Johansson,” Roker, 70, said at the time. After sharing a hug with the weatherman, Johansson asked, “Did I get the job?”