Natalie Portman is an Israeli-American Jewish actress.
She was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel and her first language was Hebrew, which she still
speaks fluently. To protect her privacy as a minor, she adopted the
name Portman, her grandmother’s maiden name, as her stage name.
Portman's maternal ancestors were Jewish immigrants from Austria and Russia, and her paternal ancestors were Jews who moved to Israel from Poland and Romania. Her mother, Shelley, is a homemaker from
Cincinnati, Ohio, who works as Natalie's agent, and her father, Avner, is a fertility specialist
from Israel. When she was three, her family moved to the United States for her father’s residency in Maryland. At seven, her father
received a fellowship and the family moved to Connecticut. In 1990, they settled in Long Island, New York, where Portman later attended and graduated from Syosset
High School in 1999.
When she was 10, Portman went to a pizza parlor and
was approached by a scout from Revlon who asked her to become a child model for the company, but she turned down the offer to focus on acting. Her parents wouldn't let her work during school, so
she spent summers at theater camps gaining experience in roles such
as Dream Laurey in Oklahoma! and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s
Dream.
In 1994, at age 13, Portman made her film debut in Léon (The Professional), a violent tale of a lonely hit man who befriends a desperate young girl
that was filmed in New York and France. Director Luc Besson had to negotiate with Portman’s parents
who wanted to make sure that she did not do anything that was inappropriate
for her age or might her career and personal life. That concern led
her to turn down roles in movies such as Lolita, due to her feeling
that young actors should not be exposed to sex at such a young age,
and the role of Juliet in William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet,
because of the age difference between her and Leonardo DiCaprio.
By age 14, Portman was busy working on a series of
films, including Heat, Beautiful Girls, Everyone Says
I Love You, and Mars Attacks!
While filming in France, Portman read the Diary
of Anne Frank and visited the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam,
which had a tremendous impact on her and led her to eventually reject
a supporting role in The Horse Whisperer and decide instead
to make her Broadway debut as Anne
Frank in The Dairy of Anne Frank. She told Parade, “Anne Frank’s faith in humanity, even when she was starving
and sick, had a huge impact on me.” It also reminded her of her
family’s history: when her grandfather moved to Palestine from Poland in the 1930s, he expected his family to follow, but his parents were sent
to Auschwitz.
After the play, Portman made what amounted to a ten-year
commitment to star as Queen Amidala in the Star Wars prequels
(Episodes I, II and III). Not surprisingly, starring in one of the most
anticipated movies in history instantly catapulted Portman into the
limelight. She told the Calgary Sun (5/1999) “The thing
I feared most has begun to happen. People are becoming too interested
in me as a person and not me as an actress. I have purposely tried to
keep my personal life out of the public domain, but it’s getting harder
with each passing week.” In another interview, she focused on
more of the positive impact of the role: “Professionally, participation
in a success increases your commercial value. From now on, I am a product
that allows a movie to be more easily sold. It's in particular thanks
lm this summer: it found
its financing when I accepted the role. Personally, the success of Star
Wars modified the nature of my public, of my fans. Now, I interest
more kids of 10-12 years than men of ripe age and, frankly, I prefer
that” (La Libre Belgique 2/2000).
Portman majored in psychology and graduated from Harvard
in 2005. She acted during her breaks, appearing
in Cold Mountain and Garden State. When the Harvard
Crimson ran an op-ed article labeling Israel “racist,”
Portman wrote a rebuttal that said, “Israelis and Arabs are historically
cousins. Until we accept the fact that we are constituents of the same
family, we will blunder in believing that a loss for one ‘side’
is not a loss for all humankind.”
In 2006, Portman starred as Evey Hammond in V for Vendetta. Commenting on the movie's political relevance and her character who joins an underground anti-government group, she said that Evey is “often bad and does things that you don’t like” and that “being from Israel was a reason I wanted to do this because terrorism and violence are such a daily part of my conversations since I was little.” She said the film “doesn't make clear good or bad statements. It respects the audience enough to take away their own opinion”.
In 2010, Portman starred as ballerina Nina Sayers in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, also starring Mila Kunis. In January 2011, she won the Best Actress Golden Globe and on February 27, 2011, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.
In addition to her film career, Portman served as the
Ambassador of Hope with The Foundation for International Community Assistance,
an organization that provides small loans to women in Third World countries
so they can start their own businesses. She is also an advocate for animal rights and has been a vegetarian since childhood and a vegan since 2009.
Portman met her husband, French ballet dancer and Black Swan choreographer Benjamin Millepied, in late 2009. The couple has one child and Millepied announced in 2013 that he will convert to Judaism.
