Over the weekend, the draw of the star-power duo of Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum convinced audiences to check out Fly Me to the Moon, where the former played a marketing executive hired by NASA to fake the moon landing, just in case the latter failed in his mission. When director Greg Berlanti stopped by the ReelBlend podcast to discuss Fly Me to the Moon, he gushed about Johansson and Tatum’s natural chemistry, and how they’d push each other to make their scenes sharper and more comedic. And he also told me that it wasn’t Johansson’s idea to include the movie’s most celebrated cameo – none other than Johansson’s famous husband, Saturday Night Live star Colin Jost.
Jost appears in Fly Me to the Moon as a U.S. senator who is being wooed to help secure funding for the moon landing, which had become relatively controversial (and expensive). The Fly Me to the Moon trailers sell the aspect of the moon landing possibly not succeeding, with Scarlett Johansson’s character bringing in a movie director (Jim Rash) to stage the landing as a backup plan, in case NASA couldn’t make it to the lunar surface. Given the fact that Johansson and Jost share a scene together in Fly Me to the Moon, I asked her about sharing the screen with her husband, and what he was like as a scene partner. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Johansson told CinemaBlend:
He's unpredictable. Very unprofessional. We went home together. . So there was that. He's great. I mean, we don't have the chance to act opposite each other, ever. We just don't. He's written for me on SNL many times, so we definitely have a creative relationship. Or, as part of our relationship … we mind meld in a lot of ways. It's such a funny thing to see him perform. I have the wonderful fortune of being able to, if I want to on Saturdays, go and watch him perform. And I always admire what he does so much. It's so hard. Oh my gosh, it’s so hard.
Scarlett Johansson has hosted Saturday Night Live six times, and made it known during her most recent monologue that she met the love of her life on the show. Colin Jost hosts the Weekend Update portion of the show, reading fake news headlines with his co-star, comedian Michael Che. Because Jost isn’t a prolific actor, he doesn’t get the chance to act opposite Johansson, as she points out. But as they continued to discuss his cameo, Channing Tatum said that the SNL pressure cooker prepares Jost for anything, and went on to tell CinemaBlend:
I think you were saying, because of the atmosphere in which he works in at SNL, I think he's just really used to working with other creative people and really being able to listen really well. … His part is kind of one of my favorite, low key, one of my favorite parts in the movie though. Because it's so out there. It's like the most pushed, comedy-wise. And I love it. It's a nice, like, ‘Oh wow, we're really about to go down this rabbit hole?’ And then it kind of pulls back a little bit. So it's nice.
Fly Me to the Moon got off to a slow start at the box office this past weekend, where the story was the success of the horror film Longlegs, which landed at No. 2 behind the behemoth of Despicable Me 4. We will see if word-of-mouth, or a lack of comedies, helps Fly Me to find some long legs (sorry) and keep pulling in audiences looking for a laugh.
