Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman Millepied (registered at birth as Neta-Lee Hershlag; in Hebrew, נטע-לי הרשלג‎; Jerusalem, June 9, 1981) is an American-born Israeli actress, director, producer, and psychologist. She is one of the few actresses who has won the four most important film awards for the same film: the Oscar (best actress), the BAFTA (best actress), the Golden Globe (best actress in a drama) and the Screen Actors Guild Award (for Best Leading Actress) for her work in Black Swan (2010), for director Darren Aronofsky.

She made her film debut in the French film Léon (1994), where she played the role of an orphan who is saved by a hired assassin. In the 1990s, she played several leading roles in films such as Beautiful Girls and Anywhere But Here. In 1999, while working on the set of Star Wars, he entered Harvard University with a major in psychology, specializing in educational psychology, and obtained his bachelor's degree in 2003. He continued his studies at Yale, where he furthered his doctoral studies in educational psychology.

In 2001, he participated in the play The Seagull by Russian writer Anton Chekhov, which premiered at the Public Theater in New York. In 2005, for his performance in the drama Closer, was awarded a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for an Oscar in the same category. For the role of her starring in V for Vendetta she shaved her head and learned to speak with a British accent, her performance earned her a Saturn Award for Best Actress. Subsequently, she played the leading role in the historical films Goya's Ghosts (2006) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2008). In May 2008, she became the youngest member of the jury at the 61st Cannes Film Festival. That same year, she made her directorial debut in the short film Eve, which premiered at the 65th edition of the Venice International Film Festival.

She is known for playing Padmé Amidala in the second Star Wars trilogy, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999), Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) and Jane Foster in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Thor (2011), Thor: A Dark World (2013), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022).

As well as co-owning the NWSL soccer team Angel City FC founded on July 21, 2020.

Biography

Early Years

Portman was born in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, a fertility doctor, and her mother, Shelley Stevens, is an American homemaker who works as her artistic agent. Her maternal ancestors they were Jewish immigrants from Russia and Austria and their paternal ancestors were Jews who moved to Israel from Poland and Romania. Her maternal grandfather, who lost both parents in Auschwitz, was a professor of economics in Israel, and her great-grandmother, originally from Romania, served as a spy for the British Intelligence Service during World War II. Portman's parents met at the Ohio State University Center for Jewish Studies. They corresponded after her father returned to Israel and years later, when her mother visited, they were married. In 1984, when Portman was three years old, he moved with his family to the United States, where his father continued his medical degree. He is a dual citizen of Israel and an American, and has stated that despite the fact that “I truly love the United States [...] my heart is in Jerusalem. That's where I feel at home."

Natalie Portman, on the set Free Zonein 2005.

The family's early years lived in Washington, D.C., where Portman attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. However, in 1988 they moved to Connecticut and in 1990 they settled in Long Island, New York. The actress learned Hebrew and English and studied at a Jewish elementary school called Solomon Schechter Day School in Glen Cove, New York. He completed his secondary education at Syosset High School in Syosset, Long Island, graduating in 1999. In fact, he was unable to attend the US premiere of Star Wars: Episode I because he had to study. for your high school final exams.

University degree

Natalie, in addition to being an actress, also excelled as a psychologist. On June 5, 2003 Portman graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Psychology. In an interview published in the New York Post newspaper, she stated "I don't care if college ruins my career", and according to an article in Fox News the actress said " I'd rather be smart than a movie star." At Harvard she was Alan Dershowitz's research assistant in the psychology lab. During her college years she lived in the Lowell House dormitory and wrote a letter to the student newspaper The Harvard Crimson in response to an essay criticizing Israeli actions towards Palestinians. In 2004 she took postgraduate courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In March 2006 she was invited as a lecturer to a course on terrorism and counterterrorism at Columbia University, and the actress spoke about the film V for Vendetta .

Since her childhood, she showed an interest in learning other languages and has studied French, Japanese, German, Hebrew and Arabic. During her student days she co-authored two research papers published in scientific journals. In 1998, a paper of his—entitled "A Simple Method to Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar" (A simple method to demonstrate the enzymatic production of hydrogen from sugar)—participated in a science contest in which he was selected as a semifinalist. In 2002, during his years at Harvard, he contributed to a memory study called "Frontal lobe activation during object permanence".

In May 2015, the actress gave an emotional speech to the recent graduates at Harvard University in the United States, in which she encouraged them to assume their own inexperience, insecurities and ignorance to take risks and achieve unimaginable goals for them.

Artistic career

Beginnings

Natalie at the premiere of the film No Strings Attached in 2011.

At the age of four her mother enrolled her in dance classes, and she has since participated in small plays directed by local dance companies. A modeling agency visited her dance school looking for models for a catalog and selected her for a photo shoot. The images caught the attention of the Wilhelmina Models agency, with whom she was later signed. focus on acting. In an interview she said "[...] that she was different from the rest of the kids. She was more ambitious, she knew what I liked and what she wanted, and I worked hard." To promote her film career, at the age of twelve, her parents changed her last name to another, easier and more commercial, that of her maternal grandmother..

During school vacations Portman attended dance theater camps. At the age of ten, she auditioned for the musical Ruthless!, which is about a girl who commits murder in order to get the leading role in a school play. After the audition, she was selected as a substitute actress along with the singer Britney Spears for the role of Tina Denmark, which was played by Laura Bell Bundy. Her film debut was at the age of 13 in Léon, a film by Luc Besson released in 1994. Her parents forced to delete a scene from that film in which she had to appear nude and to rectify the script in the passages in which the girl was fascinated by violence. She filmed her scenes during the summer vacations of 1993. This requirement has been maintained in subsequent films, which allowed him to complete his psychology degree.

1995-1999

In the following years, Portman appeared in Ted Demme's Beautiful Girls (1995); in Heat (1995), in which he starred with Al Pacino; in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks (1996), starring Jack Nicholson and Glenn Close, and in Woody Allen's Everybody Says I Love You (1996). The latter turned out to be a tough experience for a young actress, as Allen prefers not to give the actors precise instructions from her and to obtain improvisational records.

Natalie Portman, at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009.

In 1996, she had to abandon her role in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, due to the age difference between her and Leonardo DiCaprio. On the other hand, he rejected job offers in Lolita, by Adrian Lyne, due to its high sexual content, and in The Ice Storm (1997), by Ang Lee, because his character was too sinister. In Wayne Wang's Anywhere But Here (1999), she also forced the removal of scenes in which she was to appear nude. The producers wanted to replace her, but Susan Sarandon, the film's protagonist, refused to do so. Portman was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, which went to Angelina Jolie.

In 1997, she gave life to the girl Anne Frank in the stage adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank, which was staged on Broadway.

At the age of 18, he became independent from his family and advisers. The Force of Love (1999), by Matt Williams, was the first work she did without her parents and the first in which she did a love scene. She also played the role of her mother for the first time. She was criticized for her failed attempt to imitate a southern accent.

2000-2005

Portman starred in the first three episodes of George Lucas's Star Wars. She was hired in 1997 for these three movies. She shot the first episode at age 16 during the summer of 1997; the second, at age 19, during the summer of 2000 in Australia; Tunisia, Spain and Italy and March 2001 in London, and the third at the age of 22 at the Fox studios in Australia from June 30 to September 2003. Her role in this new trilogy was that of Queen and then Senator Padmé Amidala, wife (secret) of Anakin Skywalker and mother of Luke and Leia.

In 2003, immersed in the completion of her higher studies in psychology, she participates in Cold Mountain, by Anthony Minghella, with a small role of an abandoned woman with a small son.

But 2004 had to arrive for Portman to definitively launch her career towards more serious and adult roles. In the summer came Something in Common , an unexpected public and critical success in the United States, with which he showed that he could participate in independent films. Although she would have to wait until the end of the year, with the premiere of Closer by Mike Nichols, for her confirmation as a star and great actress. Thanks to this film in which she performs scenes of a nude pole dancer with highly sexually suggestive scenes, she gets a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Alice. This would not be the last good news for her, since she was also nominated for an Oscar for this same role in the Supporting Actress category, although this time she would not take the statuette.

In 2005, she appeared in the independent film Free Zone by Amos Gitai and in the blockbuster V for Vendetta by James McTeigue, where she played Evey Hammond. For the movie, Portman shaved his head completely.

2006-2009

Portman at the premiere gala Love and Other Impossible Pursuits at the International Film Festival of Toronto 2009.

In 2006 he recorded in Spain Goya's Ghosts, by Miloš Forman, together with Javier Bardem and Stellan Skarsgard, playing the muse of the painter Goya. Its settings are varied, highlighting the exteriors shot in the El Retiro park in Madrid, as well as in the Palace of the Infante Don Luis (Boadilla del Monte).

The actress has been to Spain several times. She filmed a scene in the Plaza de España in Seville, in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones , and recently to shoot Goya's Ghosts she has been in Madrid and Salamanca.

In 2007, he worked on the first American-produced film by acclaimed Asian director Wong Kar Wai, creator of the film 2046 (winner of the Best European Film Award). It was My Blueberry Nights, which included an enormous cast: in addition to Portman herself, Oscar winner Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener), Jude Law (Closer), Ed Harris (The Hours) and the surprise cast: the singer Norah Jones, who had already participated representing herself.

He then shot the debutant Justin Chadwick's film The Boleyn Sisters, about the sisters Anne and Mary Boleyn, who clashed over the love of King Henry VIII. The great attraction of the film is that the sisters were played by Portman and Scarlett Johansson, respectively. Henry VIII was played by Eric Bana. Having previously turned down roles with nude scenes, in 2007 she made a 12-minute short, Hotel Chevalier , directed by Wes Anderson, in which she appears completely nude. The film, which was posted online, preceded Anderson's feature film Journey to Darjeeling in theaters. She also made her directorial debut with the short-comedy Eve at the Mostra of Venice in 2008.

In 2008, he participated in the documentary series of the Animal Planet television network entitled Rwandan Gorillas where, together with specialists, veterinarians and explorers, he traveled to that country to study the ecological and environmental situation of these animals, on alert due to their vulnerability (on the way to becoming endangered). He also participated in the films Paris, I love you and New York, I love you. In the latter she acted in one of the segments and directed another.

2010 to date

Christian Bale with Natalie Portman, Melissa Leo and Colin Firth at the 2011 Oscars.

The actress presented the film The Black Swan by Darren Aronofsky at the 2010 Venice Film Festival, a drama set in the world of ballet, an art that Portman had practiced as a child and which she took up again for the film. For her performance, she won a Golden Globe, a SAG award and also the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in said film. This triumph was embroiled in some controversy when Sarah Lane, the dancer who served as Portman's body double, downplayed the actress's work, stating that only 5% of the dance scenes were by Natalie: " it's impossible for one year to learn what I did for twenty-one". Director Aronofsky replied: "There are 139 dance shots in the film. 111 are by Natalie Portman alone. 28 is the dance double of her Sarah Lane. If you do a math, [80%] is Natalie Portman." The director also indicated that on a few occasions the scenes that were recorded with Lane last more than a second and that there are only two long scenes where she had to replace her face due to the complexity of the routine. Even so, he said that looking only at the length of the tape "[...] more than 90% of the time it would be Natalie Portman ".

In 2011, she played the role of Jane Foster in the superhero film adaptation Thor and reprized the role in Thor: The Dark World. 2012, Natalie starred in Paul McCartney's music video, "My Valentine".

In 2016, Portman played the lead role in Chilean director Pablo Larrain's Jackie, a biographical drama about 1960s American first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, following the death of her husband, President John F. Kennedy. The performance garnered her SAG Award, Academy Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA Award nominations for Best Actress.

In 2018, Portman starred in the sci-fi film Annihilation, as a biologist and ex-soldier.

Private life

Portman is a non-religious Jew, a self-initiated vegan since the age of six. She speaks Hebrew, English and, although she is not fluent in them, she has taken classes in French, Japanese, German, Spanish, Latin, Russian, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Thai, Danish, Norwegian and Greek.

His known partners included actors Lukas Haas, Jake Gyllenhaal, Gael García Bernal, Liron Levo, model Nathan Bogle, and singer Devendra Banhart. The latter invited her to participate in the music video for his song "Carmensita". In December 2010, People magazine announced that Portman was engaged to choreographer Benjamin Millepied, whom she met while working on the film Black Swan, and expecting their first child. Portman gave birth to their son Aleph Portman Millepied on June 14, 2011.

Portman and Millepied were married on August 4, 2012 in a Jewish ceremony near Cadaqués, Spain. On September 9, 2016, it was announced that the couple is expecting their second child in 2017. The couple gave welcomed their second child, a girl named Amalia Portman Millepied on February 22, 2017.

He has one of the highest IQs in the Hollywood sphere, with an approximate IQ of 175. He has a high capacity for scientific and mathematical analysis, as well as eidetic memory.

Charity works

Portman has given his help to numerous humanitarian and environmental causes, among which stand out: his support to FINCA as Ambassador of Hope, the Tacare Girl School Program or the Jane Goodall Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to research wildlife in Tanzania.

Filmography

Movies

Television and short films

Portman in the 83 Academy Awards in 2011.

As a director and producer

Theater

Music Videos

Awards

Oscar

Golden Globes

Actors Guild

BAFTA

Film Review

Independent Spirit

Satellite