Oscar Profile #330: Natalie Portman

Born June 9, 1981 in Jerusalem, Neta-Lee Hershlag, known professionally as Natalie Portman, was the only child of an Israeli doctor and an American homemaker. She holds dual American and Israeli citizenship. The family relocated the U.S. when she was three years old.

Portman began taking dance lessons at the age of four. At ten, she was spotted in a pizza parlor by a Revlon agent who offered her a job as a child model. She turned the offer down in favor of acting. In 1992, she auditioned for the lead role of a young girl who is prepared to commit murder to get the lead in a school play in off-Broadway’s Ruthless!. Laura Bell Bundy got the part, while Portman and Britney Spears were both chosen as Bundy’s understudies. One year later she auditioned for, and won, the part of the 12-year-old orphan befriended by assassin Jean Reno in her first film, Léon: The Professional.

Following the success of 1994’s Léon: The Professional, Portman was cast in major roles in four 1995-1996 films, Heat, Beautiful Girls, Everyone Says I Love You and Mars Attacks! . She had to wait three years for her next role, but the wait paid off when she was cast as Padme Naberri AKA Queen Amidala in Geroge Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, the first of three prequels to the original Star Wars. That same year she starred opposite Susan Sarandon in Anywhere but Here, earning her first Golden Globe nomination.

In 2000, Portman entered Harvard, announcing that she would not make any films during her studies except the next Star Wars movie on her summer break. She filmed Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones in the summer of 2000. She also filmed a cameo in Zoolander. >In the summer of 2003, she appeared in the Broadway revival of The Seagull and played a minor role in Cold Mountain. In 2004, she starred in Garden State and Closer, for which she won a Golden Globe and earned her first Oscar nomination. In 2005, she starred in the third and final Star Wars prequel, Star Wars: Episode III – The Revenge of the Sith, as well as V for Vendetta.

From 2006 through 2009, Portman was an engaging presence in such high-profile films as Goya’s Ghosts, The Darjeeling Limited, The Other Boleyn Girl and Brothers. In 2010, she won both a Golden Globe and an Oscar, as well as numerous critics’ awards, for Black Swan, later marrying the choreographer on the film. She also appeared as herself in Casey Affleck’s infamous I’m Still Here starring Joaquin Phoenix.

In 2011, Portman starred in No Strings Attached and Thor. In 2013, she reprised her role from the latter in Thor: The Dark World. In early 2016, she starred in the western, Jane Got a Gun. By the end of the year, she was back in the limelight as Jackie Kennedy in Jackie, for which she won several critics’ awards and was once again nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar.
Natalie Portman currently has six films in various stages of production.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

STAR WARS: EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999), directed by George Lucas

Portman’s performance was one of the few things that escaped the wrath of critics and audiences alike in this poorly conceived first of three prequels to the original Star Wars, which were renamed Episodes 4, 5 and 6. Portman’s character, Padme AKA Queen Amidala, is the future wife of Annakin Skywalker and mother of Luke and his sister. Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor as Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Knobi had the billing over Portman who is herself billed above Jake Lloyd as the young Annikan and Pernilla August as his mother, Shmi.

CLOSER (2004), directed by Mike Nichols

Based on a play by Patrick Marber (Notes on a Scandal), this is Nichols’ most explicitly sexual film, stronger in that regard than either Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Carnal Knowledge. Portman plays a former stripper, an American girl living in London who becomes involved with Jude Law. Eventually Law moves on to Julia Roberts and Portman moves on to Clive Owen. Then things shift again. All four performances are strong, but critics’ groups, the Golden Globes and Oscar all singled out the performances of Portman and Owen.

V FOR VENDETTA (2005), directed by James McTeigue

“Remember, remember the 5th of November, the gun powder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gun powder treason should ever be forgot.” Based on a graphic novel, this futuristic thriller produced by the Wachowski siblings and directed by their protégé, James McTeigue, earned Portman several Best Actress citations. In it, she plays the young apprentice of the mysterious V, a masked rebel who is a reluctant freedom fighter played to perfection by Hugo Weaving. The strong supporting cast includes Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, Tom Pigott-Smith, Rupert Graves and the incomparable John Hurt.

BLACK SWAN (2010), directed by Darren Aronofsky

Critics and audiences alike found Portman absolutely riveting as she transforms herself from a sweet young girl to a physically and psychologically obsessed ballerina who will stop at nothing to play the lead in Swan Lake, which drives her totally insane. The roel won her numerous critics’ awards, her second Golden Globe and her first Oscar. The strong supporting cast included Mila Kunis as her biggest competition, Vincent Cassel as the ballet’s artistic director, Barbara Hershey as her mother and Winona Ryder as an aging ballerina. Portman later married Benjamin Millepied, the film’s choreographer who also plays a ballet dancer.

JACKIE (2016), directed by Pablo Larrain

Portman had the best role of her career as Jackie Kennedy, the President’s widow in the days following her husband’s assassination while riding in an open car in Dallas on November 22, 1963. While there have been many films made about the Kennedys and Jackie post-Camelot, no actress has ever quite captured the former first lady’s look, walk and unique turn of phrase. No one, that is, until Portman who is not only letter perfect in her mimicry, but in her vulnerability as she goes through the unthinkable. Although she started out awards season in the spotlight, a second Oscar this year just wasn’t in the cards despite this being her finest work to date.