PEOPLE – The pair play mother-daughter again in Scott Thomas’ moving directorial debut, ‘My Mother’s Wedding’
Kristin Scott Thomas has an onscreen family bond with Scarlett Johansson.

Back in 1998, when Johansson was just 13 years old, the pair played a mother-daughter duo in Robert Redford’s acclaimed drama The Horse Whisperer. Now, 27 years later, the Marvel star is back playing Scott Thomas’ onscreen daughter for a second time in My Mother’s Wedding.

The film marks the directorial debut from The English Patient Oscar nominee. As she tells PEOPLE, Johansson was her top pick for the role of a Royal Navy captain who reunites with her two sisters (played by Sienna Miller and Emily Beecham) for the third wedding of their twice widowed mother (Scott Thomas).

“She’s an extraordinary actress,” Scott Thomas, 65, says of Johansson, 40. “I was very, very happy to find her again.”

The two hadn’t kept in touch over the years, Scott Thomas says, save for bumping into each other “from time to time.”

“It’s very easy to lose touch when you are a film actor because you go from one project to the next,” she explains. “You swear to a never-ending friendship and then gradually something else distracts you.”

My Mother’s Wedding is an especially personal project for Scott Thomas, who co-wrote the film with her husband John Micklethwait. Similar to Johansson’s character, Scott Thomas herself suffered major tragedies in her childhood: at 5 years old she lost her father, and when she was 12, her stepfather died — both were Royal Navy pilots who were killed in service.

Scott Thomas says she “talked a lot” about her personal story with her three onscreen daughters to help inform their performances. “When you are playing family, you sort of become family,” she says.

Johansson especially had an “immediate” reaction to the film’s screenplay, Scott Thomas remembers.

“I literally gave it to her, and 24 hours later she said yes because she was very moved by the story.”