"I was in second or third grade when my sister read this to me. I remember that when she was finished, I insisted she start right over again," Johansson admits. The somewhat dark chidren's tale of a charismatic fox influenced Johansson's career choice. "I attribute my love of drama to having heard her do all the characters' voices."

Johansson loved Capote's reflective portrayal of "two people desperately in love in that frenzied first-love kind of way."

"I loved learning about a culture that was unfamiliar to me," Johansson says of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

Johansson first encountered the novel's Holden Caulfield as a preteen. "There was a searching quality about him that affected me," she says.

This 1955 classic weeper "was one of my mother's favorite books. It's such a beautiful, tragic story. Marjorie is so full of gusto and romance," says Johansson.