Scarlett Johansson dishes out rare detail about ‘Eleanor the Great’ movie

Scarlett Johansson has recently dished out rare detail about her directorial debut, Eleanor the Great.

The Black Widow actress revealed that she decided to cast real holocaust survivors in the upcoming movie.

“It wasn't really ever a question of whether we would cast real survivors. It was more of how can we identify people that would want to participate, could participate," said the 40-year-old in a new interview with PEOPLE at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Scarlett believed that they were “lucky” because “every time we would find someone who could participate, it was like, 'Yes, we got another survivor’”.

Lucy actress noted at the time “there was like 250,000 survivors living”.

“Of course, every year it's much less. So, we were able to identify [that] it's a community,” stated Scarlett.

The first-time director opened up that Jessica Hecht, who stars in the movie “was really helpful actually in helping identify a couple of people” for the movie, along with the Shoah Foundation.

“I have to say that the whole group was so patient,” she remarked.

The Avengers actress pointed out that no one in the group had ever done a movie like that before.

“They really were just engaged and listening, which means the survivors were eager to share their stories,” added Scarlett.

Besides Jessica, other cast members include June Squibb, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Erin Kellyman.

Meanwhile, Eleanor the Great is slated to release in theatres on September 26.