Scarlett Johansson chose a floor-length scarlet gown for the Paper Tiger gala screening at the BFI London Film Festival on Saturday 10 October. The 41-year-old posed on the red carpet outside the Royal Festival Hall with her co-star Adam Driver. The open back of the dress put her large floral back tattoo on full view.
The gown itself was simple in line. It had fine shoulder straps and a softly draped neckline, skimmed the body through the torso and flowed out from the hip into a full skirt. Johansson kept the styling focused, adding a statement gold necklace set with a green stone and wearing her blonde hair in a sleek, side-parted bob. Driver matched the mood in an all-black suit with a black shirt and tie, and the pair were also photographed with the film’s director, James Gray.
The tattoo across her upper back is a black-and-grey design of several large roses linked by winding stems and leaves, with a small lamb set beneath the flowers. Johansson first drew attention to the piece at the Met Gala in 2018. It is widely believed that the roses refer to her daughter, Rose Dorothy Dauriac, whom she shares with her former husband, the French journalist Romain Dauriac, although the actress has never confirmed the meaning in public. The work was done by the celebrity tattoo artist Josh Lord, who has also inked several of her Avengers co-stars.
It is far from her only tattoo. Johansson also has an “I love NY” bracelet design on her wrist, a colourful sunrise on her forearm and a horseshoe on her ribcage bearing the words “Lucky You”. She shares a matching Avengers-inspired tattoo with Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and Jeremy Renner, a souvenir of the Marvel films that made the group household names.
Johansson and Driver have worked together before, as the leads of Marriage Story in 2019. That film, a portrait of a couple going through a divorce, earned both actors Academy Award nominations. Saturday’s event was the festival’s gala screening of Paper Tiger, the new film from Gray in which the two now appear together again. It gave the London festival one of the more glamorous red carpet moments of its gala programme at the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank, with Johansson’s scarlet dress and the tattoo it revealed drawing the most attention.
