Natalie Portman learned at an early age that growing up in Hollywood required her to protect herself from the very image that had made her famous.
The Oscar-winning actress has spoken about the lasting effects of being sexualized as a child star. She said she deliberately built a “good girl” persona to deflect unwanted attention, only to discover that the carefully constructed image continued to shape how people viewed her well into adulthood.
Portman started her acting career in films with notably dark subject matter, including the 1994 thriller “Léon: The Professional,” “Heat” and “Beautiful Girls.”
As she faced the pressures of Hollywood while still young, Portman and her parents made a conscious decision to draw a clear line between her screen image and her real-life identity.
Instead of leaning into the provocative image linked to some of her early roles, Portman presented herself publicly in a more restrained way. She wore conservative, age-appropriate outfits on the red carpet and placed strong emphasis on her education and academic achievements.
“I think there was a conscious effort, because I was depicted as this sexualized Lolita, that I wanted to be like, ‘No, I’m serious, I’m a good girl, I’m a prude, I’m smart, I’m a student,’ emphasizing that as almost a safety mechanism,” she told Harper’s Bazaar.
Throughout her career, Portman continued choosing intricate and emotionally challenging parts. Her work eventually earned her an Academy Award for “Black Swan” as well as another Oscar nomination for “Jackie.”
Yet the serious image she had built, reinforced by the intense characters she often portrayed, also led to a persistent misunderstanding about her personality.
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“But then, over time, it became like everyone thinks I’m really serious,” Portman noted. “I’m very silly, and I love to laugh more than anything, and I love to goof off. People always think I’m a perfectionist, I think, because of ‘Black Swan.’ I’m the opposite. I’m forgiving with myself. In college, we had a phrase: ‘Done, not good.’”
After years of inhabiting darker and more complicated characters, Portman said her professional focus has increasingly turned toward giving audiences something uplifting.
“Right now, it’s a lot of joy,” she told the outlet of the current phase of her career. “I think it’s both for myself and what I hope to offer an audience, because it just feels … I mean, every time has dark moments, but it feels like there’s a lot of really heavy stuff going on. It’s just ever-present in our face, and so it does feel like the biggest service you can do right now as an artist is to deliver some joy.”
She has also experienced a new source of happiness in her personal life, recently welcoming a child with her partner, Tanguy Destable.
Several weeks after the birth of her third child, Portman told Harper’s Bazaar that she was “full of wonder and joy at this magical little human.”
Portman also shares two children, Aleph and Amalia, with her former husband, Benjamin Millepied. The couple separated in 2024 after 11 years of marriage.
Although Portman has been embracing the early days of life with her newborn, she said the experience has also underscored how quickly those moments pass.
“It gives me a whole new attention to my big kids too, as I am reminded of how recently they were these little fresh creations and how quickly they’ve blossomed into incredible humans with their own amazing personalities and senses of humor and ideas,” she explained.
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