Natalie Portman has hardly ever lost the glamor that came with her being the effervescent breakout star and Hollywood sensation that she was deemed to be in the early 90s and 2000s. The actress’s visionary and delightful career that she was blessed with during her early years never stopped coming as Léon: The Professional extended to Star Wars, V For Vendetta, Marvel, and Black Swan.
Portman holds just as much mystery to her on-screen characters as she does as a Hollywood enigma herself. And in that, the Oscar-winning actress becomes a success for carving out a path marked by hard-earned success in an industry that hardly allows a child actor to play outside the sandbox.
Natalie Portman Builds a Hollywood Career Out of Revlon
At the early incorruptible age of 10, Natalie Portman set out to make a career out of sheer will and spitfire resolution. The young artist, whose affinity to creative and performance art drew her to the stage, made it her job to learn the craft while also taking part in dance troupes on the side – a practice that would later help her win an Academy Award with her ballet skills in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. But all of it began with one chance encounter, without which the then-young child’s future would have not had the catalytic rise it did with the 1994 film.
Portman states in the bio on her official website:
“When I was 10 [or 11] years old, after dance class, I went to a pizza parlor, and a guy from Revlon was there, and he wanted me to model for Revlon. So he introduced me to modeling agents, and I told them ‘I don’t want to model, I want to act,’ so they introduced me to acting agents.”
Soon after, the bold no turned into an easy yes when Luc Besson cast her as a young girl who, after witnessing the murder of her entire family, gets taken in by an unwilling assassin as she slowly begins to pick up the crafts of the job while also harboring deeply complicated adolescent feelings for the older man.
Natalie Portman’s Rise To Fame Began With Controversy
The actress who for the better part of her career made the audience fall short of words and stunned them into complete awe with her powerful performances on screen began her career with a rather controversial role in one of the most popular and highest-earning franchises of all time. George Lucas’s prequel trilogy was unlike anything the industry had ever produced or experienced and the films were just as necessary to the culmination of the Star Wars arc as they were deserving of the critical reception upon release.
Natalie Portman’s role in the film as Padme aka Queen Amidala was praised on all fronts and was a greatly fulfilled part by all accounts. However, the pairing of the teenage Portman with her much younger co-star and the latter’s childlike portrayal of the future Darth Vader became one of the many plot points that struck a nerve with the audience. The criticism and controversy that rose out of the prequel trilogy kickstarted Natalie Portman’s career just as much as it sunk Jake Lloyd’s.
Source: The Natalie Portman Story
