BARCELONA — The woman in Rat Pack-era hat and shades steps into the resort hotel elevator, sees a little Spanish boy, leans over, says "Hola" and tries to get a conversation going.
The boy goes shy and backs off. His father is mum. They ride in silence until their escape.
This is not the reaction Scarlett Johansson ordinarily gets from men — of any age, on film or in real life.
Her sensual lips, alabaster skin, diamond-blue eyes, luscious curves and a sexuality that director Woody Allen has compared with Marilyn Monroe's usually make younger guys ardent and older men wistful.
"I've got what I've got and will use it," she says.
That and acclaimed acting talent have resulted in an impressive film resume for a 22-year-old, including "Lost in Translation" and "Girl With a Pearl Earring."
She's in Spain filming Allen's latest, untitled film, called his "Spanish project," her third movie with the director.
On Friday, "The Nanny Diaries" opened nationwide with Johansson playing Annie the nanny in an adaptation of the 2002 best-selling novel.
Next year, another Johansson film arrives: "The Other Boleyn Girl," in which she plays Mary Boleyn, who vies with sister Anne (Natalie Portman) for the affections of Henry VIII.
Displaying her unflagging energy, she also is involved in projects beyond films.
In a new Louis Vuitton ad campaign, Johansson looks like a 1950s screen siren who is part Grace Kelly cool and part Jane Russell sizzle. (Yes, she says, she gets lots of Vuitton shoes and bags.)
And she has recorded an album on which she covers a variety of Tom Waits songs. She says it will be released in October.
In "The Nanny Diaries," Johansson's Annie cares for attention-starved Grayer (Nicholas Art), whose wealthy parents, Mr. and Mrs. X (Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney), place him second to their pursuit of money and prestige.
In real life, she says, "I would love to have kids. I haven't really figured it out yet. I can see having a kid or two. And I would like to adopt children. I think I'm tender with children. I got along really well with (Nicholas). It made me feel young, like you're sort of 9 again."
Johansson's romantic interest in "The Nanny Diaries" is a Harvard hottie played by Chris Evans. She refuses to reveal her off-screen love.
"No," she says, "I'm not seeing Josh Hartnett. He is dreamy, though. No, not Justin Timberlake.
"I'm a little private about that stuff. I'd love to just scream it out. But (the paparazzi and tabloids) are so intrusive. We can go down a list, and I can say, 'No, no, no.' But I won't say who."
Johansson has been branded Allen's new muse. Before the "Spanish project," he directed her in "Match Point" and "Scoop."
"I just adore Woody," she says. "We have a lot in common. We're New Yorkers, Jewish. We have a very easygoing relationship.
"I've seen things like, 'Are you his new muse?' Yeah, I go over at 2 a.m. and make him grilled-cheese sandwiches, and he writes. Ha. It's just a very easy friendship.
"Any girl my age has a fondness in the most innocent way for older men their fathers' age. It's like your father, and I'm close with my dad."
What about the comparison with Monroe?
"Maybe he's just blinded by my shock of platinum hair, or maybe it's my body type," she says with a laugh. "Honestly, I've never really understood (the comparison). I absolutely love Marilyn Monroe," and so does Allen, "but I don't see it."
She doesn't deny she appeals to many men. She plans to go to Iraq this year with the USO to visit U.S. servicemen.
"I get letters from guys my age and younger. I wanted to go in October, but it may be a little later."
Will she sing for them?
"Maybe. I'll probably just take the stage and ooze sex appeal and hang around."
Although costume dramas can be tricky, Johansson says, she took the role in "The Other Boleyn Girl," which filmed at English castles, because Portman was in it.
"It was so fantastic to work with her," Johansson says. "She's an amazing actor. We have a lot in common as New Yorkers. We know some of the same people. We have the same lifestyle."
Johansson brushes aside any suggestion that on-screen rivalry carries over to real life.
"Yeah," she jokes, "we battled it out." No, Natalie "is the sweetest girl."
Portman calls working with Johansson "the ultimate experience. I got the opportunity to watch someone do incredible work. She's really serious about her work but knows how to have a good time. She's prepared and professional and open when you're working with her, but in between, she's entertaining and making everyone laugh and singing.
"She's a spicy girl. She's got wonderful energy. She's very, very smart. She always says what she feels but always tactfully."
Portman describes herself as more tentative and Johansson as strong and direct. "You can see that in her acting. There's no messing around. You know what you're dealing with and what she feels."
Johansson says she feels a bit guilty about her upcoming album because it just fell in her lap. Warner Bros. reps heard her sing on Eric Vetro's album "Unexpected Dreams," in which actors perform, and offered her a contract.
"A lot of friends I have are musicians," she says, "and here I'm given this bullion on a plate. I had friends who would kill for that."
Singing has long been in her repertoire, she says.
"When I first started acting as a kid, I wanted to be on Broadway and do musical theater. Some time after puberty, I lost any of that desire to be a musical star on stage."
She had planned on Cole Porter standards with a Waits song.
"Then we decided I would just do all Tom Waits songs."
Finding friends in Hollywood isn't easy, Johansson has found. And Hollywood stardom nowadays is different from what she had hoped it would be.
"I'm trying to make some sort of life there — always with one foot in New York," she says. "I had a very hard time adapting. When I first got there, I was 19, I couldn't drive, so I didn't have a way of making friends. One of my best friends from high school from New Jersey came out. I got a driver's license, and we starting going places like the L.A. Zoo."
She expects she will adapt over time, although it's far from what she had imagined from reading "lots of Hollywood biographies on how Hollywood once was" in the 1930s through the early 1960s.
"It's not like that now, where you go down the street and meet Shelley Winters for dinner. A lot of times I feel like I was born in the wrong era.
"It was a very glamorous time. It was a really exciting time to be alive. You had Elizabeth Taylor, Dylan Thomas, artists, Lee Strasberg, studio heads — creative people. They worked in a different way then. Actors really homed in on their craft, bonding and living an artist's life. I wish I could have experienced that."
Some people in Hollywood haven't been kind, either, if one believes the tabloids. But Johansson quickly dismisses remarks attached to Lindsay Lohan that portrayed Johansson as fat and ugly.
"She may not have said it," Johansson says.
Although she considers herself a "social rebel," Johansson hasn't been picked up for drunken driving, gone into rehab or acted out against her parents.
Her mother, Melanie Sloan, is still managing her, as she has since they started pounding New York's pavement looking for jobs. Johansson knew at age 3 that she wanted to be an actress.
"My mom is just an amazing person," she says. "She's smart and beautiful. You don't pick your parents. She's supported every decision I've made. Even if she doesn't like a judgment, she will support me and protect me."
Self-indulgence isn't high on Johansson's agenda, although she says she believes in rewarding herself after working hard.
Her reward for her film with Allen could be a road trip across America, she says.
But if her past is any indication, she may head to other parts of the world to see what the charities she contributes to are doing — maybe to Africa, she says.
When recording her album in Louisiana, for instance, she worked with USA Harvest, even serving food to people in New Orleans who were uprooted by Hurricane Katrina. Earlier this year, she went to India and Sri Lanka with the Britain-based relief and development group Oxfam International to see how the organization is delivering health care and helping women who lost husbands in the 2004 tsunami get out of poverty.
"I was completely amazed by what they're doing." The poverty is extreme, "but you kind of just accept it and look for a solution."
Johansson sees involvement in charitable work, backing political candidates — she would support Al Gore if he were to run for president again — or entertaining troops in Iraq as things she can give in return for the success she enjoys.
"I know how lucky I am," she says. "I have friends. I'm doing what I want to do. I can travel. I also have an opportunity to make some sort of difference."
Contributing: Donna Freydkin