Scarlett Johansson takes "a gamble" every time she talks to the press.

The actress has had a difficult year after nude photographs of her were leaked and appeared all over the internet. Her divorce from Ryan Reynolds was also finalised several months ago.

Scarlett admits it is difficult to try and balance a public and personal life.

"I don't profess to know how to balance the positive and the negative media attention. It's a gamble every time you put yourself out there, and, certainly, I'm always readjusting to it," she told Interview magazine. "But I hope it never becomes normal to feel scrutinised. I value my privacy and my personal life - and I certainly don't exploit my personal life."

The 27-year-old tries to steer attention away from her personal activities and relationships and focus on her political and charitable work.

The star has been an ambassador for Oxfam since 2004.

"There are, unfortunately, people who are interested in prying. So I think you have to protect your private life as much as you possibly can, and, at the same time, find ways to redirect that focus and turn the glare into a positive thing," she explained. "I don't know how you do it. I don't know how anybody's ever done it."

The Match Point star also revealed what she admires most in other actors. Scarlett believes that the less you say about yourself in public, the easier it is for an audience to see you as different characters.

"You know, my favourite actors are actors who are enigmatic and mysterious and never make the obvious choice in terms of the projects they do or who they work with or their craft," she confessed. "But I think that the less I know about an actor, the more chance I have of allowing their own persona to kind of slip away so I can get completely lost in the character they're playing, and the more that people think they know about your personal life, the more difficult it becomes to preserve that. This has just been a bit of a crazy year."