‘The Avengers’ actress has opened up about her siblings over the yearsScarlett Johansson and her brother Hunter Johansson attend the 2nd Annual Champions Of Rockaway Hurricane Sandy Benefit in November 2014 in New York City. ; Scarlett Johansson with her sister Vanessa Johansson at the 63rd Golden Globe Awards in January 2016 in Los Angeles, California.

Scarlett Johansson may be one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, but she’s been open about her modest upbringing while growing up with her siblings in New York City.

Scarlett and her twin brother, Hunter Johansson, are the youngest of four children born to Danish architect Karsten Johansson and producer Melanie Sloan. The twins have two older siblings — Adrian Johansson and Vanessa Johansson — as well as an older half-brother, Christian Johansson, and a younger sister, Fenan Sloan.

The Asteroid City star reflected on what it was like watching her dad and mom provide for her and her siblings.

“We were living on welfare, we were on food stamps,” she said about her childhood on a 2017 episode of Inside the Actors Studio. “My parents were raising four kids in a low-income household in Manhattan. So, it was a lot.”

The family’s financial situation often caused stress in her parents’ relationship. “By the time, my twin brother and I came around, I think my parents’ marriage, it had a lot of strain,” she added. (Karsten and Melanie eventually divorced when Scarlett was a teenager in 1997.)

Despite the challenges, Scarlett looks back on her childhood fondly. The Oscar-nominated actress has also taken her daughter Rose (whom she shares with her ex-husband Romain Dauriac) past the apartment where she and her siblings were brought up.

“One of the great privileges of raising your kids where you grew up is that you get to do stuff and see things you did when you were a kid,” she told Parade in 2021.

Here’s everything to know about Scarlett’s siblings — Christian, Adrian, Vanessa, Hunter and Fenan — and their relationship with their actress sister.

Christian Johansson

Scarlett’s eldest sibling is a half-brother, Christian, from her father Karsten’s first marriage. With no known social media accounts or red carpet appearances, Christian leads a relatively private life — but he has taken his turn working behind the camera.

Christian is credited with working on several short films in Sweden (his father is half-Swedish). He was a writer and cinematographer on the Swedish short comedy film Blåljus and a camera lighting technician on another Swedish short film, Skallgång. However, his last credits were in 2004, and he appears to have not worked on any movie in nearly 20 years.

Adrian Johansson

Adrian is Karsten and Melanie’s first child together, who they raised in several small Greenwich Village apartments throughout his childhood and as their family expanded, Variety reported.

Growing up in Manhattan, Melanie exposed Adrian and his younger siblings to film and theater as kids. “She would take us to see Broadway plays when she could afford it,” Scarlett told the publication. “We’d line up in the half-price ticket line and then go see a show.”

In addition to Broadway plays, Melanie would also show Adrian and the younger Johanssons iconic films — even if they weren’t age-appropriate.

“She showed my siblings and I many age-inappropriate films like Silence of the Lambs when I was 7,” Scarlett said in a 2021 speech. “I still remember seeing Schindler’s List in the theater when I was 9, I was literally haunted by the little girl in the red coat.”

She added, “If anyone ever questioned my mom’s parenting approach, she’d say that all her children were very mature.”

With all of this exposure to the arts, it is no surprise that Adrian — like his sister Scarlett — pursued a career in acting. He appeared in the 2001 film Rain and has lent his voice to several video games, including Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption.

Vanessa JohanssonScarlett Johansson and her sister Vanessa Johansson attend the Planned Parenthood 100th Anniversary Gala in May 2017 in New York City.

In addition to her older brothers, Scarlett has an older sister named Vanessa, who is also an actress.

Vanessa’s first role was alongside Scarlett in the 1996 comedy drama Manny & Lo, as part of a group in the background. While Vanessa’s part in the film was minor, Scarlett was cast in her first leading role as 11-year-old Amanda a.k.a. Manny.

Following her appearance in Manny & Lo, Vanessa attended Carnegie Mellon University and studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in N.Y.C.

She landed two lead roles in the 2008 horror film Sharks in Venice and the 2012 Danish film Skavengers, but most of her career has been spent as a voice actress. Vanessa has narrated more than 60 audiobooks — and won an AudioFile Earphones Award for her narration work.

“I love creating characters, doing different accents, being moved by stories, and conveying that in my performance,” Vanessa said in a 2018 interview with FangirlNation. “It is a wonderful outlet for a creative person, to use a lot of skills I’ve honed as an actor in another way.”

Vanessa even collaborated with Scarlett on a narration project: In 2016, the sisters teamed up to recreate Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for Audible — with Scarlett narrating the classic story and Vanessa directing.

“It was kind of a no-brainer,” Vanessa told PEOPLE of working with Scarlett.

She added, “We’re very close and, as you can imagine, have been playing around and doing funny voices since we were little so it was a great project for the two of us because we’re so used to inventing together.”

Hunter JohanssonHunter Johansson and Scarlett Johansson at the Bloomberg & Vanity Fair cocktail reception following the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.

Scarlett and her fraternal twin brother, Hunter, have shared a tight bond since childhood.

“When we were growing up in New York City, we led very normal city lives,” Hunter told Parade in 2015. “We rode the subway to public school, went on trips with our grandma to the beach and museums.”

As the twins got older, Scarlett’s fame grew — but their close relationship remained intact. “She is my other half. Nothing is more important to me than my twin,” he added.

The Lost in Translation actress shared that she also felt “very connected to him,” calling him “the most golden-hearted person.” She continued, “I think a lot of people spend their life looking for a partner, someone to be a mirror to reflect upon, to remind them that they’ve lived. … My twin brother has always been that for me.”

Hunter has accompanied Scarlett to several red carpet events over the years, but that is the extent of his work in Hollywood. Instead, he attended the University of Vermont and New York University before pursuing a career in politics and public service.

According to an interview with the Observer, he worked as a community organizer for Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s office in New York and on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.

Scarlett Johansson and Hunter Johansson attend the 2010 White House Correspondent’s Dinner.

Beyond his political background, Hunter has made a name for himself through his philanthropic work. He spent time working for the Friends of Rockaway, a community organization in Queens, New York, and hosted a benefit with Scarlett in 2014 to help repair and rebuild the area after Hurricane Sandy.

Another natural disaster, Hurricane Maria in 2017, inspired Hunter’s next venture. In response to the devastation to Puerto Rico’s power grid and emergency response systems following the hurricane, Hunter founded Solar Responders — a non-profit organization dedicated to installing solar power in Puerto Rico’s fire stations.

Scarlett has supported Hunter’s work at Solar Responders by traveling to Puerto Rico with him and her husband, Colin Jost, to help install solar panels at a fire station in 2019. She also led a fundraising effort to help further aid the non-profit and its work.

“If there is a truly altruistic person I know in my life, it’s my brother,” Scarlett told PEOPLE that same year. “He reminds me to be a better person all the time. I’m incredibly proud of him.”

Hunter is equally complimentary of his twin sister; when Scarlett was honored with an American Cinematheque Award in 2021, he took the stage to sing his sister’s praises. “I consider Scarlett my own personal inspiration,” Hunter said, per Deadline. “I’m the luckiest brother in the world.”

Fenan SloanScarlett Johansson holding her sister Fenan Sloan in May 2012.

Scarlett became a big sister again when her mother adopted a baby girl, Fenan.

Fenan accompanied Scarlett as she received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012. At the ceremony, which Scarlett’s mother and grandmother also attended, the actress held Fenan as her star was unveiled and posed for photos together.

However, most of Fenan’s childhood has been out of the spotlight. Melanie is raising her in N.Y.C. like her other siblings, and she provides glimpses into their city life together on her Instagram.

The mother-daughter duo spend time in Central Park, pay visits to the Bronx Zoo and admire New York’s lit-up storefronts at Christmas time. Melanie also takes Fenan to Broadway plays, just as she did with her older children: The two saw Tina together in 2019.

Source: https://people.com