If it's 8 p.m. in Barcelona, Scarlett Johansson must still be working.

Most people in the Spanish city no doubt are having dinner, but Johansson, who is spending her summer in the Mediterranean hot spot making her third film with Woody Allen, is diligently doing phone interviews to promote her newest release, "The Nanny Diaries."

"I like to keep busy because I don't really have any hobbies," says Johansson, who is three months shy of her 23rd birthday and already has been in 26 films. "Work is my hobby."

Johansson shot "The Nanny Diaries" last year in her native Manhattan. She hadn't read the best-selling novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus before she was given the screenplay about a new college graduate who drifts into a job as nanny for the young son of a well-to-do couple on the Upper East Side.

"I was kind of happy that it worked out that way because I didn't really have any ideas of what it should be like," she says. "I hadn't pictured any of the characters yet."

She thinks fans of the book will be happy.

"You have to take a cinematic license when it comes to things, and sometimes stuff doesn't work in the film as well as it does in the book," she says. "But I think the film stays pretty true to the book in this case."

One exception might be the villainess. Just as Meryl Streep made the boss in "The Devil Wears Prada" less devilish than the book version, Laura Linney gives Mrs. X, the nanny's employer, softer edges.

"In the book, she's just so impossible -- not that the character in the film is, like, so likable," Johansson says. "But I think Laura humanizes the character instead of her just being this archetypal evil, overbearing, powerful woman."

"The Nanny Diaries" reflects reality by showing the pressure put on young people to decide on a career before they know who they are or what they want to be.

"A lot of my friends were going through that at the same time I was making the movie, so I felt very sympathetic toward them," says Johansson. "I've been fortunate enough to have been following a career path for a long time and always have had a passion for film and filmmaking and acting."

Nanny Annie initially is pushed toward a financial career.

"I could never do well in business, I don't think," says Johansson. "Only the entertainment business. That's about as far as my business strategy goes."

She has confidence in the people managing her business affairs. It helps that her mom is part of her team.

"I think I'm a good decision-maker, but I never am completely aware of how to execute things exactly," says Johansson. "And she's been amazing always at helping to make all of my passion projects come true."

With a resume that includes "Lost in Translation," "Girl With a Pearl Earring," "Ghost World," "Match Point," "Scoop" and "The Prestige," Johansson seems to have based most of her film choices on artistic potential. She says she's never felt as though she needed "to maintain a certain income."

"I don't have a terribly extravagant lifestyle, and I'm 22, so I fortunately don't feel like I have huge financial responsibilities," she says.

"I don't need a lot of material things. So that's prevented me from having to say yes to things that I wasn't 100 percent convinced that I could contribute artistically to."

Even more mainstream films she's done have satisfied non-monetary needs. She doesn't mind if critics who raved over her in 2003's "Lost in Translation" drubbed her 2004 teen film "The Perfect Score."

"I was going off to shoot in Vancouver by myself, and it was exciting to be in a film with other actors that were my own age for once," she says.

Plus, it gave her the chance to get to know Chris Evans ("Fantastic Four"), her co-star and love interest in "The Nanny Diaries."

"I've known him for five years now," she says. "I would see him around, and we have mutual friends, so it was pretty exciting for us to get to work together again."

 

 

(Contact Betsy Pickle of The Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee at www.knoxnews.com.)