Scarlett Johansson has become an expert on snakes after growing close to the slithery critters on the set of her movie We Bought A Zoo.

In the film, Matt Damon plays a widower whose new property comes with a zoo, where the animals are looked after by the Lost in Translation star.

The comedy drama required the two Hollywood A-listers to get up close and personal with a range of wild animals - but Johansson is adamant she loved mixing with the exotic creatures and learned a lot about their habits while on set.

She tells You magazine, "We had to recapture an escaping shipment of all kinds of exotic snakes, such as pythons and anacondas. You don't go on to a film set knowing you're going to put 70 snakes in a bucket and think this is a normal job. But you do it, you get in there..."

"You just pick it up and throw it - or gently place it - in a bucket. If you don't want to pick it up yourself, you can always bend a wire clothes hanger and use it like a hook to pick it up."

Asked how she'd deal with a rattlesnake in the wild, Johansson replies, "I would not want to get too close before I could identify what it was. But if it was not venomous, I would have handled it. You can pick it up anywhere. A snake is just a big muscle really."