Natalie Portman

Neta-Lee Hershlag 

9 June 1981

An Israeli-born American actress, producer and director. Her first role was in the 1994 action thriller "Léon: The Professional", opposite Jean Reno, but mainstream success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the "Star Wars prequel trilogy" (released in 1999, 2002 and 2005).  In 2010, Portman starred in the psychological horror film "Black Swan". Her performance received widespread critical acclaim and she earned her first Academy Award for Best Actress, her second Golden Globe Award, the SAG Award, the BAFTA Award and the BFCA Award in 2011. 

In Washington, D.C., Portman attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. Portman learned to speak Hebrew and while living on Long Island attended a Jewish elementary school, the Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County in Jericho, New York. She graduated from Syosset High School in Syosset, Long Island in 1999. She studied ballet and modern dance at the American Theater Dance Workshop in New Hyde Park, New York, and attended the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts in Wheatley Heights, both on Long Island. Portman skipped the premiere of her film "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace", so she could study for her high school final exams. In 2003, Portman graduated from Harvard University with an A.B. degree in psychology. "I don't care if [college] ruins my career," she told the New York Post. "I'd rather be smart than a movie star." At Harvard, Portman was Alan Dershowitz's research assistant. While attending Harvard, she was a resident of Lowell House and wrote a letter to the Harvard Crimson in response to an essay critical of Israeli actions toward Palestinians. Portman returned to Israel and took graduate courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the spring of 2004. In March 2006, she was a guest lecturer at a Columbia University course in terrorism and counterterrorism, where she spoke about her film "V for Vendetta". Portman has professed an interest in foreign languages since childhood and has studied French, Japanese, German, and Arabic. As a student, Portman co-authored two research papers that were published in scientific journals. Her 1998 high school paper, "A Simple Method to Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar," co-authored with scientists Ian Hurley and Jonathan Woodward, was entered in the Intel Science Talent Search. In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal lobe activation during object permanence: data from near-infrared spectroscopy" during her psychology studies at Harvard. 

As actress, direcor, producer

• Léon: The Professional (1994)
• Developing (1994)
• Heat (1995) 
• Beautiful Girls (1996) 
• Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
• Mars Attacks! (1996) 
• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) 
• Anywhere but Here (1999)
• Where the Heart Is (2000) 
• Zoolander (2001)
• Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) 
• Cold Mountain (2003)
• Garden State (2004)
• Closer (2004)
• Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
• Free Zone (2005) 
• V for Vendetta (2006)
• Paris, je t'aime (2006)
• Goya's Ghosts (2006)
• My Blueberry Nights (2007) 
• The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
• Hotel Chevalier (2007)
• The Simpsons (2007; 2012)
• Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007)
• The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
• The Other Woman (2009)
• New York, I Love You (2009)
• Brothers (2009) 
• Hesher (2010)
• Black Swan (2010) 
• No Strings Attached (2011)
• Your Highness (2011) 
• Thor (2011)
• Illusions & Mirrors (2013)
• Thor: The Dark World (2013)
• The Seventh Fire (2015)
• Knight of Cups (2015)
• A Tale of Love and Darkness (2015)
• Jane Got a Gun (2016)
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)
• Jackie (2016)
• Planetarium (2016) 
• Song to Song (2017)
• Annihilation (2017) 
• The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (2017)

Quotations

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Cute is when your personality shines through your looks. Like, when you see someone's personality in the way they walk and you just feel like hugging them every time you see them.

* * *

I don't mean to criticize anyone in any way that I wouldn't criticize myself. I think people should have fun, and have a good time, and enjoy the luck that we have to be lazy and dwell in consumerism. But I think that it's a balance. And our job as actors is empathy.

* * *

I don't love studying. I hate studying. I like learning. Learning is beautiful.

* * *

Smart women love smart men more than smart men love smart women.

* * *

I loved school so much that most of my classmates considered me a dork.

* * *

Ninety per cent of how you learn is watching great people. When you are surrounded by good actors it lifts your performance.

* * *

I'd rather be smart than a movie star.

* * *

I always ask myself, would I want someone to do something that wasn't comfortable for them just to please me? And the answer is no.

* * *

Young actors often don't think of the consequences of doing nudity or sex scenes. They want the role so badly that they agree to be exploited, and then end up embarrassing family, friends, and even strangers.

* * *

Everyone dreams of living in Paris.

* * *

I was definitely different from the other kids... I was more ambitious. I knew what I liked and what I wanted, and I worked really hard. I was a very serious kid.

* * *

I think all girls in the world wish they were a Parisian girl - that sort of effortless chic confidence and comfort in their own skin.

* * *

I love being a mum, but it's much more intensive work than being an actress - going to work feels like you've got a day off. Not that I want a day off from being a mum; it's just perhaps I had this impression before that mums don't work. But they work more than anyone.

* * *

I want every version of a woman and a man to be possible. I want women and men to be able to be full-time parents or full-time working people or any combination of the two.

* * *

I don't know if acting is what I want to do for the rest of my life, it's just what I've, you know, ended up doing when I was little, and I've kinda grown up with it.

* * *

I was, like, a total cliched '80s child. I had Barbies, obviously, as well as My Little Ponies and Cabbage Patch Kids, but I used to destroy them. I used to draw all over their faces and cut off their hair.

* * *

My dad's a doctor, and when I was 8, I went to one of his medical conferences where they were demonstrating laser surgery on a chicken. I was so mad that a chicken had to die, I never ate meat again.

* * *

A movie about a weak, vulnerable woman can be feminist if it shows a real person that we can empathize with.

* * *

I'm pretty hard on myself in general.

* * *

I don't have a normal job, so I really appreciate having friends who are writers and artists. It's fun to have a group of people you can call in the middle of the day to go for a hike.

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