For her feature directing debut, “Eleanor the Great,” Scarlett Johansson needed to tackle a character far removed from the roles she has played as an actress: an elderly woman who assumes the backstory of a Holocaust survivor.

“I had such empathy for that character. I mean, I would’ve played her,” Johansson said during an interview at the Variety Toronto Film Festival Studio. “It’s such a rare thing to get a script sent to you that’s a little jewel like this one was. It really so so rarely happens.”

The Sony Pictures Classics film, which stars 95-year-old June Squibb as the titular protagonist, will make its North American premiere at TIFF on Sept. 8, following a splashy debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May. It marks a stunning late-career achievement for Squibb, who ty

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