SDCC 2024: Chris Hemsworth Reveals He Recruited Scarlett Johansson for Transformers One Role

Transformers One is taking the Autobots franchise to animation. Live-action installments of the classic Hasbro toys have been hitting the big screen since 2007, all reaching varying levels of critical approval and financial success. In an effort to take the franchise back to its roots, Paramount began developing an animated Transformers film in the mid-2010s as live-action installments like Bumblebee and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts were airing in cinemas. After landing Pixar veteran Josh Cooley (Inside Out, Toy Story 4) to direct, momentum skyrocketed, and top talent like Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry joined the voice cast in the years that followed. With only two months to go until the film hits theaters, the cast and creators behind Transformers One hit San Diego Comic-Con to share tidbits about the making of the film.

Transformers One: Chris Hemsworth Recruited Scarlett Johansson

The Transformers One vocal ensemble includes a Marvel Studios reunion.

Starring alongside Chris Hemsworth (Optimus Prime) and Brian Tyree Henry (Megatron) is Scarlett Johansson (Elita). This represents Hemsworth and Johansson’s first collaboration outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which last saw them share the screen in Avengers: Endgame (2019).

Speaking to ComicBook at San Diego Comic-Con, Hemsworth revealed he personally recruited Johansson to join him in the Transformers One cast.

“I texted Scarlett and said, ‘Hey, you got to come do this film,’” Hemsworth revealed. “Because I think I was the first one involved. And she’s like, ‘Yeah, cool! Sounds like a lot of fun.’”

Johansson voices Elita, an Autobot described as “devoted and powerful.” In Transformers lore, Elita begins as a manual laborer named Ariel who eventually evolves into an Autobot resistance leader that works closely with Optimus Prime. She regularly is known as Elita-1.

While Hemsworth and Johansson’s characters will share many scenes together in Transformers One, the two actors never linked up in the recording booth due to the nature of how animated films are shot.

“We all shot our own individual pieces in different parts of the world,” Hemsworth added. “Then we’d occasionally hear what the other person had been recording, and so you’d quickly adjust your bit, like, ‘Oh, that’s really funny. I could use this and do that.’ It’s not like a traditional movie set when you’re reacting in real time with one another.”

Transformers One hits theaters on September 20th.