As workers search for the elusive balance between career ambitions and personal life, one of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars has a reality check. For Scarlett Johansson, the idea of perfectly balancing work and life is more fantasy than reality.

“I think actually admitting that there is no work-life balance is the first step to getting there in a way because it’s just not possible,” Johansson—best known for her role as Black Widow in the Marvel franchise—told CBS Sunday Morning.

The actress said there will almost always be a “deficit” somewhere, whether at work or at home—and over time, she’s learned to accept that not everything can be done perfectly.

“I’ve learned to be more kind to myself in that way. You can’t do all of these things all the time,” Johansson said. “There’s just like, ‘Is it good enough?’”

As Scarlett Johansson has taken on more roles in her life, including launching a skincare brand, raising two children (born in 2014 and 2021), and balancing a marriage—she said her definition of success has evolved. As a parent in particular, she said it means doing what’s right, even if it doesn’t always make her the “most popular.”

“Somebody once told me, ‘If you’re successful as a parent like 75% of the time, that’s good—if you’re doing 75% of it like right, then you’re winning, which is probably true,” Johansson said.

Scarlett Johansson grew up on food stamps—and now she’s one of the highest-paid Hollywood stars

Johansson was the fourth-highest paid actor in 2025, behind Adam Sandler, Tom Cruise, and Mark Wahlberg, according to Forbes. Her net worth is about $165 million, estimates Celebrity Net Worth.

But growing up in Manhattan in a family of six, she has said money was often tight during her childhood. In a 2017 interview with Entertainment Tonight, she recalled her family relying on welfare and food stamps to get by.

By age nine, Johansson had already begun acting, landing her first role in the 1994 Rob Reiner-directed comedy, North. Her rise to stardom accelerated with films like Lost in Translation, Marriage Story, and a string of Marvel blockbusters culminating in the 2021 standalone film Black Widow.

Beyond acting, Johansson has also occasionally used her platform for public and political advocacy, including longstanding support for feminism and women’s rights, as well as canvassing against the reelection of President Donald Trump.

Her career has even pulled her into the center of debates around artificial intelligence. In 2024, Johansson publicly accused OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman of using a voice for the company’s chatbot that sounded strikingly similar to her own after she declined to participate in the project.

Many top performers agree: work-life balance isn’t always possible

Johansson isn’t alone in questioning whether true work-life balance exists—even as it’s become a top motivator for job seekers. Many high achievers have echoed the same sentiment: succeeding at the highest level often comes with tradeoffs.

Emma Watson, best known for playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series, said the intense demands of filmmaking made balance feel nearly unattainable as she grew up in the spotlight.

“I just used to completely sacrifice myself for whatever the thing was I was trying to achieve,” Watson said on the On Purpose podcast last year.

“Making films, the hours on them are so demanding, that to have your own life alongside that, to have that balance is almost impossible.”

That same mentality extends beyond Hollywood. Emma Grede, the CEO of Good American and a founding partner of Skims, argued that extraordinary success inevitably requires extraordinary effort.

“If you are leading an extraordinary life, to think that extraordinary effort wouldn’t be coupled to that somehow is crazy,” Grede said on The Diary of a CEO podcast in 2025.

If it’s possible to have true work-life balance, she continued, “tell me who she is, and I’ll show you a liar.”

Even former President Barack Obama has admitted that having a balanced work and life will not always be possible.

Speaking on The Pivot Podcast last year, he said: “If you want to be excellent at anything—sports, music, business, politics—there’s going to be times of your life when you’re out of balance, where you’re just working and you’re single-minded.”