Natalie Portman (born Natalie Hershlag;Hebrew: נטלי הרשלג‎; June 9, 1981) is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 action film Léon: The Professional, but mainstream success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (released in 1999, 2002 and 2005). In 1999, she enrolled at Harvard University to study psychology while still working as an actress. She completed her bachelor's degree in 2003.

 

In 2001, Portman opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull.In 2005, Portman received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture for the drama Closer. She won a Constellation Award for Best Female Performance, and a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her starring role in V for Vendetta (2006). She played leading roles in the historical dramas Goya's Ghosts (2006) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2008). In May 2008, she served as the youngest member of the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival jury.Portman's directorial debut, Eve, opened the 65th Venice International Film Festival's shorts competition in 2008.Portman directed a segment of the collective film New York, I Love You.

 

In 2011, Portman won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, the BAFTA Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Independent Spirit Award for her lead performance as Nina Sayers in Black Swan.

 

Early life

Portman was born in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Shelley (née Stevens), an American homemaker who works as Portman's agent, and Avner Hershlag, an Israeli citizen who is a fertility specialist and gynecologist.Portman's maternal ancestors were Jewish immigrants to the United States, from Austria and Russia (her mother's family had changed their surname from "Edelstein" to "Stevens"). Her paternal grandparents were Jews who moved to Israel from Poland and Romania. Her paternal grandfather, whose parents died at Auschwitz, was an economics professor in Israel, and her Romanian-born great-grandmother was a spy for British Intelligence during World War II.

 

Portman's parents met at a Jewish student center at Ohio State University, where her mother was selling tickets. They corresponded after her father returned to Israel, and were married when her mother visited a few years later. In 1984, when Portman was three years old, the family moved to the United States, where her father received his medical training.Portman, a dual citizen of the United States and Israel,has said that although she "really love[s] the States... my heart's in Jerusalem. That's where I feel at home."

 

Portman and her family first lived in Washington, D.C., but relocated to Connecticut in 1988, and then settled on Long Island, New York, in 1990.

 

Education

In Washington, D.C., Portman attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. Portman learned to speak Hebrew in addition to English, and attended a Jewish elementary school, the Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County, New York.She graduated from Syosset High School in Syosset, Long Island, in 1999.Portman skipped the premiere of her film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace so she could study for her high school final exams.

 

In 2003, Portman graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. degree in psychology. "I don't care if [college] ruins my career," she told the New York Post. "I'd rather be smart than a movie star."At Harvard, Portman was Alan Dershowitz's research assistant.While attending Harvard, she was a resident of Lowell House and wrote a letter to the Harvard Crimson in response to an essay critical of Israeli actions toward Palestinians.

 

Portman took graduate courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the spring of 2004.In March 2006, she was a guest lecturer at a Columbia University course in terrorism and counterterrorism, where she spoke about her film V for Vendetta.

 

Portman has professed an interest in foreign languages since childhood and has studied French,Japanese, German,and Arabic.

 

As a student, Portman co-authored two research papers that were published in scientific journals. Her 1998 high school paper, "A Simple Method to Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar", co-authored with scientists Ian Hurley and Jonathan Woodward, was entered in the Intel Science Talent Search.In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal Lobe Activation during Object Permanence: Data from Near-Infrared Spectroscopy" during her psychology studies at Harvard.This publication placed Portman among a very small number of professional actors with a defined Erdős–Bacon number.

 

Career

Early work

Portman started dancing lessons at age four and performed in local troupes. At the age of ten, a Revlon agent asked her to become a child model,but she turned down the offer to focus on acting. In a magazine interview, Portman said that she was "different from the other kids. I was more ambitious, I knew what I liked and what I wanted, and I worked very hard. I was a very serious kid."

 

On school holidays, Portman attended theater camps. When she was ten, Portman auditioned for the Off-Broadway show Ruthless!, a musical about a girl who is prepared to commit murder to get the lead in a school play. Portman and future pop star Britney Spears were chosen as the understudies for star Laura Bell Bundy.In 1994, she auditioned for the role of a child who befriends a middle-aged hitman in Luc Besson's film, Léon: The Professional. Soon after getting the part, she took her grandmother's maiden name "Portman" as her stage name, in the interest of privacy and to protect her family's identity.Léon: The Professional opened on November 18, 1994, marking her feature film debut. That same year she appeared in the short film Developing, which aired on television.

 

Social and political causes

Portman, who is an advocate for animal rights, has been a vegetarian since childhood.She became a vegan in 2009 after reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals.She does not eat animal products or wear fur, feathers, or leather. "All of my shoes are from Target and Stella McCartney," she has said.In 2007, she launched her own brand of vegan footwear.During her pregnancy in 2011, Portman went off her vegan diet and returned to vegetarianism.

 

In 2007, Portman traveled to Rwanda with Jack Hanna, to film the documentary Gorillas on the Brink. Later, at a naming ceremony, Portman christened a baby gorilla Gukina, which means "to play."Portman has been an advocate of environmental causes since childhood, when she joined an environmental song and dance troupe known as World Patrol Kids.She is also a member of the One Voice movement.

 

Portman has also supported antipoverty activities. In 2004 and 2005, she traveled to Uganda, Guatemala, and Ecuador as the Ambassador of Hope for FINCA International, an organization that promotes micro-lending to help finance women-owned businesses in developing countries.In an interview conducted backstage at the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia and appearing on the PBS program Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria, she discussed microfinance.Host Fareed Zakaria said that he was "generally wary of celebrities with fashionable causes," but included the segment with Portman because "she really knew her stuff."

 

In the "Voices" segment of the April 29, 2007, episode of the ABC Sunday morning program This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Portman discussed her work with FINCA and how it can benefit women and children in Third World countries.In fall 2007, she visited several university campuses, including Harvard, USC, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton, New York University, and Columbia, to inspire students with the power of microfinance and to encourage them to join the Village Banking Campaign to help families and communities lift themselves out of poverty.

 

Portman is a supporter of the Democratic Party, and in the 2004 presidential race she campaigned for the Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry. In the 2008 presidential election, Portman supported Senator Hillary Clinton of New York in the Democratic primaries. She later campaigned for the eventual Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, during the general election.In a 2008 interview, she also stated: "I even like John McCain. I disagree with his war stance – which is a really big deal – but I think he's a very moral person."

 

In 2010, Portman's activist work and popularity with young people earned her a nomination for VH1's Do Something Awards, which is dedicated to honoring individuals who do good.

 

In 2011, Portman and her then fiancé Benjamin Millepied were among the signers of a petition to President Obama in support of same-sex marriage.Portman supported Obama's re-election campaign.

 

Personal life

In 2006, she commented that she felt more Jewish in Israel and that she would like to raise her children Jewish: "A priority for me is definitely that I'd like to raise my kids Jewish, but the ultimate thing is to have someone who is a good person and who is a partner."

 

After starring in the video for his song "Carmensita", she began a relationship with American folk singer Devendra Banhart, which ended in September 2008.

 

Portman began dating ballet dancer Benjamin Millepied in 2009. The couple met while she was filming Black Swan, for which Millepied was the choreographer. In December 2010, Portman announced their engagement and confirmed her pregnancy.Portman gave birth to their son Aleph Portman-Millepied in June 2011.In February 2012, Portman and Millepied were photographed wearing wedding rings at the Academy Awards ceremony, but representatives did not respond to requests for comment on the couple's marital status.In August 2012, Portman and Millepied married in an intimate Jewish ceremony in Big Sur, California.

 

Filmography

Film

 

Portman at the 83rd Academy Awards in 2011

Title	Year	Role	Notes
Léon: The Professional	1994	Mathilda
Developing	1994	Nina	Short
Heat	1995	Lauren Gustafson
Beautiful Girls	1996	Marty
Everyone Says I Love You	1996	Laura Dandridge
Mars Attacks!	1996	Taffy Dale
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace	1999	Padmé Amidala
Anywhere but Here	1999	Ann August
Where the Heart Is	2000	Novalee Nation
Zoolander	2001	Herself	Cameo
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones	2002	Padmé Amidala
Cold Mountain	2003	Sara
Garden State	2004	Samantha
Closer	2004	Alice Ayres
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith	2005	Padmé Amidala
Free Zone	2005	Rebecca
V for Vendetta	2006	Evey Hammond
Paris, je t'aime	2006	Francine	Appears in the segment directed by Tom Tykwer
Goya's Ghosts	2006	Inés Bilbatúa & Alicia
My Blueberry Nights	2007	Leslie
Darjeeling Limited, TheThe Darjeeling Limited	2007	Jack's Ex-Girlfriend
Hotel Chevalier	2007	Jack's Ex-Girlfriend	Short
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium	2007	Molly Mahoney
Other Boleyn Girl, TheThe Other Boleyn Girl	2008	Anne Boleyn
The Other Woman	2009	Emilia Greenleaf	Also executive producer
New York, I Love You	2009	Rifka	Also directed a segment on this film
Brothers	2009	Grace Cahill
Hesher	2010	Nicole	Also producer
Black Swan	2010	Nina Sayers
No Strings Attached	2011	Emma Kurtzman	Also executive producer
Your Highness	2011	Isabel
Thor	2011	Jane Foster
Knight of Cups	2013		Post-production
Untitled Terrence Malick Project	2013		Filming
Thor: The Dark World	2013	Jane Foster	Filming

 
Television

Title	Year	Role	Notes
Sesame Street	2003/2004	Herself	Season 34, Episode: "Oscar Needs a Change of Scenery" Season 35, Episode: "Alan's Vacation Replacement"
Saturday Night Live	2006	Host	Season 31, Episode 13
Armenian Genocide, TheThe Armenian Genocide	2006	Aurora Mardiganian (narration)	Documentary film
Simpsons, TheThe Simpsons	2007, 2012	Darcy (voice)	Episodes: "Little Big Girl", "Moonshine River"

 
Theatre

Production	Year	Role	Notes
Ruthless!	1994	Tina Denmark	Understudy Players Theatre
Diary of Anne Frank, TheThe Diary of Anne Frank	1997	Anne Frank	Music Box Theatre
Seagull, TheThe Seagull	2001	Nina	Delacorte Theater