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June 11, 1999/27 Sivan 5759, Vol. 51, No.37
Israel-born actress Natalie Portman blasts off
DINA FUCHS
Atlanta Jewish Times
When George Lucas' "Star Wars" was released in 1977, Natalie Portman wasn't even born yet.
It was four more years before the girl who now plays the future mother of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in the much anticipated "The Phantom Menace" was welcomed into the world.
Portman, who will turn 18 next month, is not only an angelic beauty - first discovered in a Long Island pizza parlor by a modeling scout - she is also a brilliant student who carefully picks and chooses her acting roles.
Mindful of "the force" her turn as the young Queen Amidala is likely to have on her career, the actress still insists she doesn't know what she wants to be when she grows up.
"I'm still not sure if acting is what I want to do with the rest of my life," she recently told Entertainment Weekly. "It's kinda scary throwing yourself out there to be in a movie this big. You'll always be recognized from it."
Though her star may be rising in Hollywood, at home in New York, Portman is just another high school senior looking forward to graduation. She's already been accepted at Harvard and Yale and is waiting to hear from several other schools. In addition to college in the fall, she will also appear as the daughter of Susan Sarandon in the film "Anywhere but Here."
"She's a really smart girl who has had a very rarefied upbringing, who has been raised with a lot of confidence and self-esteem, so she seems older than she is in many ways," Sarandon told Vanity Fair of her young co-star. "I felt at times that I was working with an equal. She has a natural grace that doesn't make her seem as if she's of her generation."
Portman was born in Jerusalem on June 6, 1981, the only child of an Israeli physician and his American wife. The family moved back to the United States when Natalie was 3, and settled on New York's Long Island six years later. They return to Israel regularly to visit relatives, and the actress is a proud Jew who is fluent in Hebrew.
"I'm not religious at all, but Israel is such a spiritual place," she once said. "I hope there will be peace there. Israelis and Arabs are cousins; we have the same descendants - yet there is this hatred. It's just ridiculous that people kill other people in the name of religion."
Portman has had a meteoric rise. Two years ago, after a handful of movie roles, she was cast as the lead in James Lapine's Broadway production of "The Diary of Anne Frank." It was a role she was drawn to, having read the book 10 times. To prepare for the play, she visited the secret annex in Amsterdam where the Frank family spent two years hiding from the Nazis. She also met with Miep Gies, the woman who funneled supplies to the family during the war.
During the show's run, she appeared on-stage eight times a week, earning praise from theater critics, while still maintaining her "A" average in school.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife even took time out to see her performance when they were in New York, meeting with Natalie after the show.
"She has a magnetic quality, the same one that one imagines Anne Frank would have had," Lapine said of Portman.
Portman's parents still watch over their only child carefully, taking a huge interest in the parts she chooses to play.
"They talk to the director for hours before every project I do to make sure I'm not going to be doing anything that's going to hurt me in my personal life," she told Vanity Fair.
It was because of concerns of her parents that Portman turned down the lead opposite Jeremy Irons in the controversial film version of "Lolita." In the upcoming "Anywhere but Here," a sex scene had to be rewritten before Portman would sign onto the movie.
"My parents are really protective of me, especially when it comes to sexy movies. Ninety percent of the scripts I get are sexy (with) a lot of nudity," she has been quoted as saying. "I think if you're going to have nudity in a film, you should only do it if it is really necessary. Right now I would never do nudity, and I don't know if I'll ever be comfortable with it."
Portman proudly boasts that she does not drink, smoke or frequent the club scene like so many of her contemporaries. For the past 10 years, she has been a vegetarian, becoming stricter over the years, eliminating even fish and cheese from her diet.
Portman took on her grandmother's maiden name as a professional moniker. Her real last name - even the town in which her family lives - is shrouded in the utmost of secrecy.
"I feel really lucky because my parents have helped me," she has said. "I go to public school. My friends are regular kids. Our house is really regular. We have a dog. We live with trees. That's important."
She is one of the few budding celebrities who have never been forced to endure any nagging criticisms or grapevine controversies. Anyone who has ever worked with the young star has nothing but compliments for Portman, both as an actress and as a person.
"I'd never seen Natalie in anything prior to the first time she came in to interview," said Woody Allen, who cast Portman in 1996's "Everyone Says I Love You," "but she immediately impressed me as an unusually natural and intelligent actress - she has a great future."
Director Michael Mann, who had worked with Portman a year earlier in "Heat," was similarly struck by her maturity.
"When I met her, you could tell she was kind of a prodigy," he told Entertainment Weekly.
Director Ted Demme has remained a devoted fan since working with a 14-year-old Portman on the film "Beautiful Girls."
"In 10 years, she's going to run the entire world," he said to People magazine at the time, "and I want to be one of her assistants."
Even if Portman decides that acting isn't her calling after all, she is committed to George Lucas through the summer of 2002, when she will complete the last of the Star Wars series' three prequels. By then, at 21, she will no doubt have earned even more recognition in her field. But chances are, the ever down-to-earth Portman will emerge from the showbiz machine unscathed.
"The best part about me is that I can be doing something and totally believe that I'm in the place, and after 'cut,' I'm like, 'OK, I'm Natalie,' " she told Venice magazine. "It's kind of like hypnosis, you're in one place, and then it's over and you're in another, and you don't even remember."
Dina Fuchs is senior staff writer at the Atlanta Jewish Times.
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