Chinese postcard by Oriental City Publishing Group. Photo: Lucasfilm. Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002).
British postcard by Pyramid, Leicester, no. PC 2104. Photo: Mitchell Gerber / Corbis. Caption: Natalie Portman, Portrait.
An orphan girl befriends a middle-aged hitman
Natalie Portman was born Natalie Hershlag (Hebrew: נטע-לי הרשלג) in Jerusalem, Israel, in 1981. She is the only child of Israeli doctor Avner Hershlag and his Jewish-American wife, born Shelley Stevens. ‘Portman’ is a stage name, after her grandmother's original surname. The family moved to Maryland due to her father's job, then Connecticut, before settling on Long Island.
Portman was discovered in a pizzeria when she was 11 years old by an agent of Revlon, who wanted her as a model. She turned his offer down with a view to an acting career. Her mother became her agent.
At 12, she made her film debut as Matilda in the action drama Léon / The Professional (Luc Besson, 1994). Her role as an orphan girl who befriends a middle-aged hitman (Jean Reno) was the beginning of a pattern of portraying characters who are usually particularly intelligent and mature for their age.
Michael Mann offered her the small part of the suicidal stepdaughter of Al Pacino's character in the action film Heat (1995). Ted Demme cast her as a precocious teenager who flirts with her much-older neighbour (Timothy Hutton) in the ensemble comedy-drama Beautiful Girls (1996). Portman received good reviews for her part.
She next appeared in Tim Burton's comic Science Fiction film Mars Attacks! (1996) and Woody Allen's musical Everyone Says I Love You (1996). In 1997, she briefly withdrew from film to take part in the Broadway revival of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank'. This stage role was followed by the coming-of-age film Anywhere but Here (Wayne Wang, 1999) in which Susan Sarandon played her mother. Portman was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1999 for her role as Ann August in the film.
French postcard, no. PP 104. Jean Reno and Natalie Portman in Léon/Léon: The Professional (Luc Besson, 1994).
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 490-005. Photo: Lucasfilm. Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks, Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn and Natalie Portman as Padmé in Star Wars - Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
A young woman looking for her place in life
Star Wars fans know Natalie Portman as Padmé Amidala in George Lucas’s prequel trilogy, Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), her first big-budget productions. She worked closely with the director, George Lucas, on her character's accent and mannerisms.
She did not attend the first episode's premiere so she could study for her high school finals. In 1999, Portman graduated from Syosset High School in Syosset, Long Island. In 2003, she graduated from Harvard University with a degree in psychology. The following year, Portman returned to Israel and participated in various courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In the Summer of 2001, Portman acted in a stage production of ‘The Seagull’, based on a play by Anton Chekhov. The production, directed by Mike Nichols and also starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline, was a hit with audiences at the Delacorte Theatre in New York's Central Park. In the film Closer (Mike Nichols, 2004), she played Alice, a young woman looking for her place in life alongside Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Clive Owen. She won the Golden Globe Award for this film and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 2005 Academy Awards. Closer grossed over $115 million worldwide against a $27 million budget.
Also in 2004, she portrayed the upbeat and disorderly Sam in the independent romantic comedy Garden State (Zach Braff, 2004). She then played Evey Hammond in V for Vendetta (James McTeigue, 2005), based on the comics of the same name, about an alternative future where a neo-fascist regime has subjugated the United Kingdom. For this role, she had her head shaved. In 2007, Portman was featured in the music video for Paul McCartney's single 'Dance Tonight'. In 2012, she collaborated again with McCartney in the song 'My Valentine'.
Scarlett Johansson and Portman portrayed rival sisters Mary and Anne Boleyn in the period drama The Other Boleyn Girl (Justin Chadwick, 2008). She served as a jury member of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and also launched her own production company, named Handsomecharlie Films, after her late dog. Portman's directorial debut, the short film Eve, opened the short-film screenings at the 65th Venice International Film Festival. Portman is known for her social engagement. In Venice, she won the ‘Movie for Humanity’ award, an award for the actor or actress who has done the most for good causes that year. In 2009, she appeared in a faux perfume commercial called Greed, directed by Roman Polanski.
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 106-128. Photo: Lucasfilm. Natalie Portman as Padmé Amidala in Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas, 2005).
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 106-136. Photo: Lucasfilm. Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker and Natalie Portman as Padmé Amidala in Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas, 2005).
An ambitious ballerina overwhelmed with the prospect of performing Swan Lake
After producing and co-starring alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the black comedy Hesher (Spencer Susser, 2010), Natalie Portman played the title role of Nina Sayers, a ballet dancer, in the psychological thriller Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010). The ambitious ballerina is overwhelmed with the prospect of performing Swan Lake. Portman was trained by the professional ballerina Mary Helen Bowers, and in preparation, she trained for five to eight hours daily for six months and lost 20 pounds (9 kg). Her acclaimed performance earned her her second Golden Globe Award and an Oscar. Black Swan emerged as a sleeper hit, grossing over $329 million worldwide against a $13 million budget.
Her film adaptation of Amos Oz's autobiographical novel, A Tale of Love and Darkness (Natalie Portman, 2015) premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival. In 2016, she took on the role of presidential wife Jacqueline Kennedy in the biopic Jackie (Pablo Larraín, 2016), about Kennedy's life immediately after the 1963 assassination of her husband. It earned Portman a third Oscar nomination.
She has also been part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since her role as Jane Foster in the comic adaptation Thor (Kenneth Branagh, 2011), followed by Thor - The Dark Kingdom (Alan Taylor, 2013) and Thor: Love and Thunder (Taika Waititi, 2022) with Chris Hemsworth as the title character. This established her as one of the world's highest-paid actresses.
As a producer, she was involved in the films Hesher (Spencer Susser, 2010), Jane Got a Gun (Gavin O'Connor, 2016) and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Burr Steers, 2016). Portman has also directed the short film Eve (2008) and the biographical drama A Tale of Love and Darkness (2015), in which she also starred. In 2021, Portman and her producing partner, Sophie Mas, founded the production company MountainA, under which she produced and starred in the film May December (Todd Haynes, 2023) with Julianne Moore and the miniseries Lady in the Lake (Alma Har'el, 2024).
While filming Black Swan (2010), Portman got into a relationship with choreographer Benjamin Millepied. In 2010, their spokesperson announced that they were engaged and that Portman was pregnant. She gave birth to a son, Aleph (2011) and a daughter, Amalia (2017). Portman and Millepied married in 2012. Portman separated from Millepied after allegedly having an affair with a 25-year-old climate activist in the summer of 2023. The divorce was finalised in early 2024. Natalie Portman will next star in Fountain of Youth, an adventure film directed by Guy Ritchie.
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 106-021. Photo: Lucasfilm. Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 106-004. Photo: Lucasfilm. Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala in Star Wars - Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 106-032. Photo: Lucasfilm. Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala in Star Wars - Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999).
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.
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