Natalie Portman American Actress From Jerusalem

Early life

Natalie Portman was born Natalie Hershlag on 9 June 1981 in Jerusalem, the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli gynecologist, and Shelley Stevens, an artist from Ohio. Hebrew was her first language, and she holds both Israeli and American citizenship. The family moved to the United States around 1984, living first in Washington, D.C., then in Connecticut, and finally in Syosset, on Long Island.

She studied ballet and modern dance as a child. At ten she was approached by a modelling agent, declined, and instead found an acting agent. She was an understudy in the off-Broadway musical Ruthless! in 1992. When she began acting professionally she took Portman, her paternal grandmother's maiden name, as her stage name.

Career

Portman's film debut came at thirteen in Luc Besson's Léon: The Professional (1994), where she played Mathilda, a girl who befriends a hitman played by Jean Reno. Small parts followed in Heat (1995), Beautiful Girls (1996), Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and Mars Attacks! (1996). From December 1997 to May 1998 she played Anne Frank in a Broadway revival of The Diary of Anne Frank, while still attending school.

She was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequels, appearing in The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005). She graduated from Syosset High School in 1999 and then studied at Harvard University, taking a bachelor's degree in psychology in 2003. During those years she reduced her acting work, though she appeared in a 2001 staging of Chekhov's The Seagull at The Public Theater in New York, directed by Mike Nichols. She also spent time at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Her performance as a stripper in Mike Nichols's Closer (2004) brought a Golden Globe and her first Oscar nomination. She then played Evey Hammond in V for Vendetta (2005), Anne Boleyn in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) and, for Darren Aronofsky, a ballerina in Black Swan (2010). The role of Nina Sayers took months of dance training and earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Meanwhile she directed the short film Eve (2008) and a segment of New York, I Love You (2008), and in 2008 she founded the production company handsomecharlie films.

In 2011 she starred in No Strings Attached and began playing the scientist Jane Foster in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in Thor (2011), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), in which the character becomes Mighty Thor. She wrote, directed and starred in A Tale of Love and Darkness (2015), a Hebrew-language adaptation of Amos Oz's memoir. She played Jacqueline Kennedy in Pablo Larraín's Jackie (2016), earning a third Oscar nomination, and later appeared in Annihilation (2018), Vox Lux (2018) and Lucy in the Sky (2019).

In 2021 she and Sophie Mas founded the production company MountainA, which has an agreement with Apple TV+. It produced Todd Haynes's May December (2023), in which Portman co-starred with Julianne Moore, and the miniseries Lady in the Lake (2024). Her credits listed through 2026 include The Gallerist.

Public roles

Portman has long supported animal welfare and has been vegan since 2009, and she produced a documentary adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals. In 2004 and 2005 she travelled to Uganda, Guatemala and Ecuador as an ambassador for the microfinance organisation FINCA International. She became an ambassador for WE Charity in 2011 and in 2018 donated 50,000 dollars to the Time's Up initiative. In 2020 she became one of the co-founders and owners of Angel City FC, a women's soccer club that joined the National Women's Soccer League in 2022. She has also been a spokesperson for Dior since 2010.

Recognition

For Black Swan, Portman won the Academy Award, the BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award and the Screen Actors Guild Award for best actress, as well as the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. Her earlier Golden Globe came in 2005 for Closer, which also brought her BAFTA and Oscar nominations in the supporting category. Jackie brought nominations for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe, and she won a Saturn Award for V for Vendetta. In 2000 she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Anywhere but Here.

Personal life

Portman met the dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied during the making of Black Swan, and they married in a Jewish ceremony in Big Sur, California, on 4 August 2012. They have a son and a daughter. In 2014 the family moved to Paris when Millepied became director of dance at the Paris Opera Ballet. The couple's divorce was announced in March 2024.