You learn a lot from moving around. Especially as a kid. And an only child. You learn to adapt. To make new friends. To build the confidence to start again. This was Natalie Portman’s life growing up. Jerusalem, Maryland, Connecticut, then New York. Always moving and always learning.
A chance meeting in a pizza parlour at 10 opened her eyes to what was possible. A Revlon scout spotted her. She turned down the modelling opportunity, and decided to pursue her passion of acting. She found an agent and months later, landed her first role in Luc Besson’s ‘Léon: The Professional’, a debut so raw and fearless, it launched her into public consciousness at just 13.
Hollywood took notice. Beautiful Girls (1996), Mars Attacks! (1996), Cabaret (1996) on stage. By day, she studied. By night, she performed. Then came Star Wars. A career-defining moment. A blockbuster trilogy. But also, a brutal wake-up call. In a 2014 interview, she recalled that ‘everyone thought I was a horrible actress’ and ‘no director wanted to work with me’.
Instead of letting criticism define her, Natalie developed the work-ethic that has defined her career. Following support from director Mike Nicholls, she was cast again. She honed her craft, pushed harder, aimed higher. Help was always welcomed, but she knew it was down to her to get as good as she could possibly get on her own. She worked relentlessly, balancing her career with an Ivy League education, earning a degree in psychology from Harvard University while continuing to act.
Determined to challenge perceptions, she sought out roles that demanded more. V for Vendetta (2005) - shaved head, new accent, total transformation. But it was Black Swan (2010) that cemented her reputation as one of Hollywood’s finest. Training for eight months to portray a professional ballet dancer, she delivered a performance of staggering intensity. An Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA followed. And she never let up. More films. More awards. Her own directorial projects.
But with success comes scrutiny. Like many actors, Natalie has faced the challenge of being both deeply vulnerable in her craft, whilst maintaining her resilience in the public eye. Despite the noise, she remains steadfast in her values, passionate about women’s equality and education, and using her platform to elevate causes that matter to her.
It seems that ‘success’ for Natalie was never about the awards. Rather success was about ‘ensuring a meaningful experience’ and ‘following your curiosity until it’s end’. Thankfully, Natalie remains on her journey of following her curiosity, and continues to inspire and engage audiences around the world.
Natalie Portman – video transcript
We only have one life, and as an actor you get to kind of dip your toe into all these other experiences that you might never have. I've gotten to play an astronaut and a rock star and a ballet dancer and a First Lady, and of course it's not the same as actually having a lifetime of that, but you get a little kind of dip into that experience.
I moved a lot as a kid. I moved to the US when I was three years old from Israel. We lived first in Maryland, then in Connecticut, then in New York. And so I think all of that moving around kind of made me very flexible. I could quickly assess the situation, figure out how to fit in, understand subtle social cues. So I feel like that was the first, first experiences that added to my emotional awareness of other people.
I loved dancing and singing and performing, and I went to dance school pretty much every day after school and took different classes. And one day I was at a pizza parlour after dance class with my mum and someone saw me there and asked if I wanted to be in Revlon ads. And so that was how I got introduced to my first agent. And then I started auditioning. The first big thing I got was 'Léon: The Professional'. I think I was really lucky that the first people I worked with really treated me like a kid and really created an environment where it felt like playing and just kind of like an extension of being a child. Acting felt very frivolous to me, like a silly thing that didn't matter. And it took me a long time first to accept that it was what I loved. And that sometimes doing what you love is important, that finding joy and having fun and doing the thing that makes your heart sing is the most important. On 'Black Swan', I spent like eight months in the studio, sometimes six, seven hours a day training. And yeah, you just get kind of immersed in that world and it's fun.
An actress once said to me something that stuck with me a lot, which is that the hardest thing about the job is that to do what we do, we have to be very thin skinned and vulnerable. And then to be on the public side of the job, you have to have a very thick skin, whatever bad things people say about you, or no matter how much you get rejected that it doesn't completely destroy you, that you can have that kind of barrier. I feel insecure all the time. I feel bad all the time about things that I see or read or hear about myself. And it's very dangerous to have this gulf between the human being you are that is inside you, and then the human being you put out into the world that you want other people to think you are. Being in the public eye is maybe a little bit amplified, but I think everyone feels that now.
I've been very passionate about women's equality and girls' equality and girls' education in particular, and it's been really one of the most meaningful things in my life to gather with women, share experiences, and advocate for each other, for equality in all its forms. I think it was Maya Angelou who said that people won't remember what you did, but they'll remember how you made them feel. And I would hope to make people remember that I made them feel good. And it's a simple thing, but also a very difficult thing I think to achieve. I don't think there's anything that guarantees success. If you can ensure a fulfilling experience for yourself, if you follow your curiosity, it won't ensure that you succeed in the eyes of the world or by anyone else's metrics, but you'll have a meaningful experience for yourself if you follow your curiosity until it's end.
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Natalie Portman became one of the most celebrated actors of her generation.
She has won multiple awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA, a Screen Guild Actors Award and two Golden Globes.
Beyond her cinematic success, she is a passionate advocate for gender equality, education, and sustainability, using her platform to inspire others and drive progress.
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