A Childhood Away from the Spotlight
Natalie Portman, born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, spent her early years in Israel before moving to the United States at the age of three. Her family initially settled in Washington and later relocated to Connecticut, eventually finding a permanent home in Syosset on Long Island. At just ten years old, she was discovered by a Revlon agent while working in a pizza restaurant. Although she declined the modeling offer, she used the opportunity to secure an acting agent, setting the stage for her future career.
Debut alongside Jean Reno
At the age of twelve, Natalie Portman made her film debut in Léon, a 1994 movie directed by Luc Besson. She played Mathilda, an orphan who forms a bond with a hitman portrayed by Jean Reno. Her parents were initially hesitant about the role due to the film’s explicit content, but they agreed after Besson revised the script to remove risky scenes and those involving violence. This film also marked the beginning of her stage name, as she adopted her paternal grandmother’s maiden name, Portman. Hal Hinson of the Washington Post praised her performance, noting her “genuine sense of tragedy” in the role.
Michael Mann and Ted Demme
The success of Léon led to more opportunities for the young actress. Michael Mann cast her in a minor role in Heat (1995), where she played the stepdaughter of Al Pacino’s character. Ted Demme then gave her a part in Beautiful Girls (1996), in which she portrayed a precocious teenager flirting with Timothy Hutton’s character. Janet Maslin of the New York Times called her performance “scene-stealingly good.” That same year, she appeared briefly in Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You and Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!.
Portman was also considered for the role of Juliet opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, but she dropped out during rehearsals because the studios felt she was too young. She also turned down the title role in Adrian Lyne’s Lolita due to the script’s content. Later, she reflected that roles in Léon and Beautiful Girls led to offers for teenage characters in explicit scripts, which frightened her and made her reluctant to take on such roles.
Padmé Amidala
In 1997, George Lucas chose Natalie Portman to play Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. The first film, Episode I: The Phantom Menace, was released in 1999 during her senior year of high school. To prepare for the role, she studied the original trilogy and worked on her delivery, drawing inspiration from the films of Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn, and Katharine Hepburn. The film grossed $924 million worldwide and launched her into global stardom. She reprised the role in Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005).
Harvard, then Recognition
While balancing her acting career, Portman pursued her education, studying psychology at Harvard University, where she earned her degree in 2003. “I’d rather be smart than a movie star,” she said at the time. Her career reached a new milestone in 2004 with Mike Nichols’s Closer, which earned her a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. She followed this with roles in V for Vendetta (2005), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and Black Swan (2010), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She later played Jackie Kennedy in Jackie (2016), earning another Oscar nomination, and Jane Foster in the Marvel franchise Thor.
Producer and Director
In 2008, Portman directed the short film Eve, and in 2015, she directed the feature film A Tale of Love and Darkness. In 2021, she co-founded the production company MountainA with Sophie Mas, which produced May December (2023) and the miniseries Lady in the Lake (2024).
