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Natalie Portman (born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981), an actress, producer, and director holding dual Israeli and American citizenship, has built a prolific career spanning blockbusters and independent films since her teenage years, earning an Academy Award, a BAFTA, and two Golden Globes. Born in West Jerusalem but raised on Long Island, New York, her acting career began at age twelve with her acclaimed role as a hitman’s protégée in Léon: The Professional (1994). While still in high school, she debuted on Broadway in The Diary of Anne Frank (1997) and gained widespread international recognition portraying Padmé Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999). Balancing academia with acting, Portman attended Harvard University from 1999 to 2003, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology. During this period, she appeared in the subsequent Star Wars prequels (2002, 2005) and performed in a 2001 revival of Chekhov’s The Seagull.
Her career surged in 2004 when she won a Golden Globe and received her first Academy Award nomination (Best Supporting Actress) for Closer. She then delivered notable performances as Evey Hammond in V for Vendetta (2005), Anne Boleyn in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and achieved the pinnacle of recognition for her portrayal of a troubled ballerina in Black Swan (2010), winning the Academy Award for Best Actress. Portman demonstrated her range in the romantic comedy No Strings Attached (2011) and earned her third Oscar nomination for her embodiment of Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie (2016). She also became a major figure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing astrophysicist Jane Foster in Thor (2011), Thor: The Dark World (2013), and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), the latter cementing her status among the world’s highest-paid actresses.
Expanding her creative influence, Portman directed the short film Eve (2008) and wrote, directed, and starred in the Hebrew-language biographical drama A Tale of Love and Darkness (2015). In 2021, she co-founded the production company MountainA, producing and starring in projects like the film May December (2023) and the miniseries Lady in the Lake (2024). Beyond her screen work, Portman is a dedicated advocate for causes including women’s rights, environmental protection, and animal welfare, supporting organizations such as the Human Rights Foundation and the Jane Goodall Institute. Her journey encompasses critical acclaim, commercial success, artistic exploration behind the camera, and significant humanitarian engagement.
Natalie Portman’s early life:
Natalie Portman, born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in West Jerusalem, Israel, is the only child of Shelley Stevens, an American artist from Ohio, and Avner Hershlag, an Israeli gynecologist. Her family history is deeply rooted in Jewish diaspora and tragedy. Her maternal grandparents immigrated to the US from Russia and Austria, while her paternal grandparents emigrated from Poland to Israel in the late 1930s. Her paternal grandfather, who led a Jewish youth movement in Poland, arrived first expecting to bring his family later, but they perished in the Auschwitz gas chambers. Her paternal Romanian grandmother later served as a British spy during World War II. Portman holds dual Israeli-American citizenship. When she was three years old, her family relocated to the United States, initially settling in Washington, D.C., where she attended the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Maryland. The family moved to Connecticut in 1988 before finally settling in Syosset, Long Island. Hebrew is her native language. On Long Island, she continued her Jewish education at the Solomon Schechter Day School. Portman demonstrated early ambition and seriousness, describing herself as different and more driven than other children. She actively pursued dance, studying ballet and modern dance at the American Theater Dance Workshop and regularly attending the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. Her path towards acting began unexpectedly at age ten when a Revlon agent spotted her at a pizza restaurant and asked her to model. Though she declined the modeling offer, she used the encounter to secure an acting agent. Shortly after, she successfully auditioned for the off-Broadway musical Ruthless! (1992), landing an understudy position alongside Britney Spears for the lead role. This marked the beginning of her professional acting career.
Natalie Portman’s early career (1994-1998):
Following her understudy role in Ruthless!, Natalie Portman (born Hershlag) secured her breakthrough role at age twelve in Luc Besson’s Léon: The Professional (1994), adopting her paternal grandmother’s maiden name professionally. She portrayed Mathilda, a precocious orphan who forms a complex bond with a hitman (Jean Reno). Her parents initially objected to the script’s explicit sexual and violent content but consented after Besson removed scenes involving Mathilda’s nudity and killings. Portman herself felt the revised content was unobjectionable, though her mother later expressed displeasure with sexualized elements that appeared in the final film. Critics were divided: Hal Hinson (Washington Post) praised her “genuine sense of tragedy,” while Peter Rainer (Los Angeles Times) felt she lacked the depth for Mathilda’s pain and criticized the character’s sexualization. This experience profoundly impacted Portman, who later reflected on the prevalence of young girls being written as “fantasy objects” for men, stating it made her “reluctant to do sexy stuff” and heavily influenced her subsequent choices. After Léon, she balanced school with acting, filming Marya Cohn’s short Developing (1994) about a girl coping with her mother’s cancer. She also honed her craft at Stagedoor Manor performing arts camp. Impressed by her ability to portray dysfunction, Michael Mann cast her as Al Pacino’s suicidal stepdaughter in Heat (1995). Ted Demme, admiring her work in Léon, then cast her as a flirtatious teenager opposite Timothy Hutton in Beautiful Girls (1996), with Janet Maslin (New York Times) calling her a “budding knockout” and “scene-stealingly good.” She appeared briefly in Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You and Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! (both 1996). Offered roles that leaned heavily into sexualization, Portman turned down Adrian Lyne’s Lolita due to its explicit content and dropped out of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet during rehearsals when deemed too young. Instead, she chose a demanding artistic challenge: starring as Anne Frank in the 1997-1998 Broadway revival of The Diary of Anne Frank at the Music Box Theatre. Deeply connecting with Frank’s story due to her own family’s Holocaust history (her paternal great-grandparents perished at Auschwitz), she prepared intensely, visiting the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and meeting Miep Gies. Performing nightly while attending high school daily proved emotionally draining, and she chronicled the experience in essays for Time and Seventeen. Critical reception was mixed: Greg Evans (Variety) found her portrayal lacking Frank’s charm and intelligence, while Ben Brantley noted an “ineffable grace in her awkwardness.” This period established Portman as a serious young actress navigating complex roles while consciously avoiding exploitation.
Natalie Portman’s personal life and key career highlights:
Natalie Portman is a polyglot, speaking English, Hebrew, French, German, Japanese, and Arabic to varying degrees. She has made significant real estate investments, including purchasing a West Village apartment for $5.7 million in 2005 and later a Montecito mansion, which she sold in 2021 for $8 million; she maintains a home in Los Feliz, Los Angeles. Portman has consistently expressed a strong connection to her Jewish identity and a desire to raise her children Jewish. She discreetly dated actors Zach Braff, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Devendra Banhart before meeting French dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied on the set of Black Swan in 2009. The couple married in a Jewish ceremony in Big Sur, California, on August 4, 2012, and have two children together. In 2013, they were based in Los Angeles, but relocated to Paris in autumn 2014 after Millepied was appointed director of dance at the Paris Opera Ballet; Portman expressed interest in obtaining French citizenship at that time. Millepied announced he was converting to Judaism in January 2014. Following reports of an extramarital affair by Millepied in early 2023, the couple officially announced their divorce on March 8, 2024. Portman’s prolific film career includes both blockbuster franchises and critically acclaimed independent films. Her highest-grossing and most notable roles span the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999, 2002, 2005), the Thor franchise (2011, 2013, 2022), as well as V for Vendetta (2005) and No Strings Attached (2011). She has delivered award-winning performances in films such as Closer (2004 – Golden Globe win, Oscar nomination), Black Swan (2010 – Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe, SAG Award wins for Best Actress), and Jackie (2016 – third Oscar nomination). Other acclaimed work includes Annihilation (2018). Her accolades reflect her significant impact, encompassing an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.