Scarlett Johansson has filed a suit against publisher JC Lattes, who she said described a character as looking exactly like her.
She seeks to gain compensation and damages from the "breach and fraudulent use of personal rights," in addition to stopping the "future transfer of rights and adaptations of the book," The Hollywood Reporter said on Friday.
The French novel The First Thing We Look At starts with a woman who comes a mechanic's door in the northern village of Somme looking for help. Initially, the mechanic thinks she is 'Scarlett Johansson,' but later in the narrative, the reader finds out she is not the bombshell actress, but merely a look-alike by the name of Jeanine Foucaprez.
Writer Gregoire Delacourt did not seek out Scarlett Johansson to nab rights for using her name in the book.
Delacourt told French paper Le Figaro that the lawsuit "stunned" him when he caught wind of it early Friday morning.
"This corresponds with the fantasies of our times. All these famous people live with us," he said in his own defense, pointing out that a large chunk of the details concerning Johansson's love life have been widely publicized online. "But I wrote a book of fiction. My character is not Scarlett Johansson, it is Jeanine Foucaprez!"
He also told Figaro that the main male character was a lot like Ryan Gosling and attributed the character that played his boss to Gene Hackman.
He said that the novel looks at the "dictatorship of appearances and the true beauty of women," and decided to include Johansson as the femme fatale because she is the "epitome of beauty today."
Johansson is the face of Dolce & Gabanna's current ad campaign. Previously, she was featured in Louis Vuitton ads. The 28-year-old actress also has a burgeoning music career-she released an album in 2008 called Anywhere I Lay My Head.
