Best Known As: Queen Amidala in the Star Wars series
Name at birth: Natalie Hershlag
Natalie Portman is best known as Queen Amidala in the George Lucas film Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999). Portman made her mark as a coming-of-age actress in the mid-1990s, co-starring in The Professional (1994), Heat (1995, with Al Pacino) and Mars Attacks (1996, with Jack Nicholson). Her talent landed her in Woody Allen's movie Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and on Broadway starring as Anne Frank in a 1997 revival of The Diary of Anne Frank. The year Portman portrayed Amidala she began undergraduate studies at Harvard University; she graduated in 2003. Her other films include the Star Wars sequels Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005), the Zach Braff feature Garden State (2004), the adult drama Closer (2004, with Clive Owen), V for Vendetta (2005, based on the comic book by Alan Moore), Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007, starring Dustin Hoffman), and The Other Boleyn Girl (2008, with Portman as Queen Anne Boleyn).
Portman, her screen name, is her grandmother's maiden name.
Career Highlights: The Professional, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Where the Heart Is
First Major Screen Credit: The Professional (1994)
Biography
With a major part in the most anticipated film of the 1990s, George Lucas' Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace, repeated comparisons to Audrey Hepburn, and the drool of a thousand critics at her feet, Natalie Portman has emerged as one of the most promising actresses of her generation.
Born in Jerusalem on June 9, 1981, to an artist mother and doctor father, Portman moved to New York when she was three. Raised on Long Island, she was discovered by a modeling agent who signed her on the spot. Her modeling stint led to an audition for Luc Besson's Leon (or The Professional, as it was called in the United States). Due to her age (she was 12 when the film was cast), Portman was initially turned down for the lead role of Mathilda, a girl who asks a hit man (Jean Reno) to train her as an assassin to avenge her brother's death and falls in love with him in the process. However, she ultimately won the part and her 1994 film debut earned a number of positive notices. In interviews, Portman allowed that making her first film in the toughest sections of Spanish Harlem was frightening, but not quite so frightening, she claimed, as going back to school once shooting wrapped.
Portman then took on the role of Al Pacino's step-daughter in another demanding film, Michael Mann's Heat (1995). She followed this up with lighter fare as Jack Nicholson's daughter in Mars Attacks! (1996). Despite a triumph of casting (the ensemble also included Glenn Close, Annette Bening, and Rod Steiger) and the direction of the dependably original Tim Burton, the film was a critical and financial disappointment. Portman emerged relatively unscathed, going on the same year to make Woody Allen's musical comedy Everyone Says I Love You. The film met with a decidedly happier fate among critics and filmgoers than her previous venture and Portman continued to ride high with the success of her third film of 1996, Beautiful Girls. For her performance as Marty, the precocious teen who nearly steals a much older Timothy Hutton away from his fiancée, Portman received adulation from a host of critics, some of whom stated that she was the best part of the whole movie.
After turning down title roles in both Lolita and William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, Portman took on another title role with her 1997 Broadway debut in The Diary of Anne Frank. She stayed with the show until May 1998, during which time she received positive notices for her performance. After lending her voice to The Prince of Egypt (1998), Portman took on her most talked-about role to date, that of Queen Amidala in The Phantom Menace (1999). Despite very mixed reviews, the film went into box-office hyperdrive, further propelling Portman toward her status as a rapidly emerging talent for the new millennium.
Portman ended the 20th century with more positive reviews for her role as Susan Sarandon's moody daughter in Wayne Wang's Anywhere But Here and then, appropriately enough, kicked off the new century with her first more adult role in Where the Heart Is. For her portrayal of the film's protagonist, who ages from 17 to 22 over the course of the story, Portman was required to do her first love scene, something she professed a distaste for in various interviews.
Offscreen, Portman also did some growing up, enrolling for her college education at Harvard University. A psychology major, she made it clear upon her enrollment that, aside from her role as Queen Amidala in the Star Wars films, she would not accept any film roles for the duration of her education. Perhaps to the disappointment of fans, she stuck to her word, remaining absent from the screen (save Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones) until she received her degree in 2003. Luckily, upon her return to acting, it was immediately evident that it had been worth the wait.
Portman's first foray following graduation was the 2003 Civil War ensemble drama Cold Mountain, a film that saw her overshadowed a bit by Renee Zellweger and Nicole Kidman, as the latter actresses had larger parts. But in 2004, Portman was at the forefront of both Garden State and Closer, a pair of films that garnered the young actress some of the biggest accolades of her career and, in the case of Closer, her first Oscar nomination.
In 2005, as the curtain finally closed on the Star Wars franchise with the release of Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Portman could be seen sans-hair as the lead in the graphic-novel adaptation V for Vendetta. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
Natalie Hershlag
(Hebrew: נטלי הרשלג)
June 9, 1981 (1981-06-09)(age 28) Jerusalem, Israel
Years active
1994–present
Natalie Portman (Hebrew: נטלי פורטמן; born Natalie Hershlag June 9, 1981) is an IsraeliAmericanactress. Her first role came in the 1994 independent film Léon (known in the United States as The Professional). She became very widely known when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.[1] Portman, who stated that she would "...rather be smart than be a movie star,"[2] completed a bachelor's degree in psychology at Harvard College while she was working on the Star Wars films.[3].
Portman was born Natalie Hershlag (Hebrew: נטלי הרשלג) in Jerusalem, Israel.[6][7] Her father, Avner Hershlag, is an Israeli doctor specializing in fertility and reproduction (reproductive endocrinology).[8][9] Her mother, Shelley Stevens, is an American homemaker who now works as her agent.[8] Portman's maternal ancestors were Jews from Austria and Russia and her paternal ancestors were Jews who immigrated to Israel from Poland and Romania. Her paternal grandfather's parents died in Auschwitz and her Romanian-born great-grandmother was a spy for the British during World War II.[10]
Portman's parents met at a Jewishstudent center at Ohio State University where her mother was selling tickets. Her father returned to Israel, but the two corresponded and were married when her mother visited Israel a few years later. In 1984, when Portman was three years old, the family moved from Israel to the United States, where her father pursued his medical training. The family first lived in Washington, D.C., where she attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, but relocated to Connecticut in 1988, and then settled permanently in Long Island, New York, in 1990.[1] Portman has said that although she "really love[s] the States... my heart's in Jerusalem. That's where I feel at home."[10] She is an only child and very close to her parents,[1] who are often seen with her at her film premieres.
Education
Although she says her family was not religious,[11] Portman attended a Jewish elementary school, the Solomon Schechter Day School of Glen Cove, New York. She graduated from a public high school, Syosset High School.[1] Portman skipped the premiere of Star Wars: Episode I so she could study for her high school final exams.[12]
In June 2003, Portman graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor's degree in psychology. At Harvard, Portman was Alan Dershowitz's research assistant (he thanks her in The Case for Israel) in a psychology lab. While attending Harvard, she was a resident of Lowell House[13] and wrote a letter to the Harvard Crimson in response to an anti-Israeli essay.[14]
As a student, Portman co-authored two research papers that were published in professional scientific journals. Her 1998 high school paper on the "Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen" was entered in the Intel Science Talent Search.[21] In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal Lobe Activation During Object Permanence" during her psychology studies at Harvard.[22] Due to her scientific publications, Portman is among a very small number of professional actors with a defined Erdős–Bacon number.[23][22][24][25][26][27][28]
Career
Early career
Portman started dancing lessons at the age of four[1] and she performed in local troupes. At the age of ten, a Revlon agent asked her to become a child model,[29][1] 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."[30] Portman spent her school holidays attending theater camps. When she was ten, she auditioned for Ruthless!, a play about a girl who is prepared to commit murder to get the lead in a school play, and she was chosen as the understudy for Laura Bell Bundy.[11] In 1994, she auditioned for the role of a child who befriends a middle-aged hitman in Luc Besson's film Léon (aka The Professional). Soon after getting the part, she took her grandmother's maiden name "Portman" as her stage name, in the interest of privacy;[1] in the director's cut of the film on DVD she is credited as Natalie Hershlag. Léon opened on November 18, 1994, marking her feature film debut at age 13. That same year she appeared in the short film Developing, which aired on television.
2005 saw the worldwide release of the final Star Wars prequel, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on May 19. The film was the highest grossing film of the year, and was voted Favorite Motion Picture at the People's Choice Awards. Shortly before the film's opening, Portman shaved her head for her role in the film adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta, released in March 2006. Her shaved head was first seen publicly at the Revenge of the Sith premieres. "Making a dramatic change that isn't reversible is always a worthy experience", she said of the drastically different hairstyle, "and that sort of gave me the courage to do it."[37] She kept her hair short for most of 2005, had a fauxhawk, and briefly sported a full mohawk in late August, saying that it was "kind of wonderful to throw vanity away for a bit".[38] Also in 2005, Portman filmed Free Zone and director Miloš Forman's Goya's Ghosts. Forman had not seen any of her work, but thought she looked like a Goya painting so he requested a meeting.[39]
2006–present
Portman appeared on Saturday Night Live on March 4, 2006,[40] hosting the show with musical guest Fall Out Boy and special guest star Dennis Haysbert. In a SNL Digital Short,[41] she portrays herself as an angry gangsta rapper (with Andy Samberg as her Flavor Flav-esque partner in Viking garb) during a faux-interview with Chris Parnell, saying she cheated at Harvard University while high on pot and cocaine.[42] The song, titled "Natalie's Rap", was released - alongside other sketches from the show - in 2009 on Incredibad, an album by the Lonely Island.[43] In another sketch, she portrays a student named Rebecca Hershlag (her actual surname) attending a Bar Mitzvah, and in an installment of the recurring sketch The Needlers (also known as Sally and Dan, The Couple That Should Be Divorced), plays a fertility specialist (her father's profession).
V for Vendetta opened in early 2006. Portman portrayed Evey Hammond, a young woman who is saved from the secret police by the main character, V. Portman worked with a voice coach for the role, learning to speak with an English accent, and had her head shaved.[44]Maxim magazine named Portman #33 on its annual Hot 100 list, citing her V for Vendetta hairstyle as a huge accomplishment proving "you don't need hair to be hot."[45]
Portman has commented on V for Vendetta's political relevance, and mentioned that her character, who joins an underground anti-government group, is "often bad and does things that you don't like" and that "Being from Israel was a reason I wanted to do this because terrorism and violence are such a daily part of my conversations since I was little." She said the film "doesn't make clear good or bad statements. It respects the audience enough to take away their own opinion".[46] Both Goya's Ghosts and Free Zone received limited releases in 2006. Portman starred in the children's film Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, which began filming in April 2006 and was released in November 2007; she has said that she was "excited to do a kids' movie."[44] In late 2006, Portman filmed The Other Boleyn Girl, a historical drama in which she plays Anne Boleyn; Eric Bana and Scarlett Johansson co-starred in the film. She was also named one of the hottest women of film and TV by Blender Magazine.[47]
Portman has been a vegetarian since childhood[53] and is an advocate for animal rights. 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.[54] It has been reported that she will appear alongside actress Elissa Sursara in a PETAPSA to support the group's anti-fur campaign at some point throughout 2009.[55] In 2007, Natalie Portman traveled to Rwanda with Jack Hanna, to film a documentary titled Gorillas on the Brink. Later, at a naming ceremony, Portman named a baby gorilla Gukina, which means "to play."[56] In 2007, she launched her own brand of vegan footwear.[57] Portman has been an advocate of environmental causes since childhood, when she joined an environmental song and dance troupe known as World Patrol Kids.[58] She is also a member of the One Voicemovement.[59]
Portman was involved with the 2004 presidential campaign of Democratic candidate John Kerry and has 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 poor countries.[60] 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.[61] 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."[62] 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.[63] In fall 2007, Portman visited several university campuses, including Harvard, 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.[64]
On the concept of the afterlife, she comments: "I don't believe in that. I believe this is it, and I believe it's the best way to live."[10] She has said that she feels more Jewish in Israel and that she would like to raise her children in the Jewish religion: "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... I get much more Jewish in Israel."[65] During the 2008 Democratic primaries, Portman supported Senator Hillary Clinton for president, but said that she "likes Obama as well."[66] She later campaigned for Obama during the general election.[67]
^ Brooks, D.H. Yiheng Zhang Franceschini, M.A. Boas, D.A. Reduction of physiological interference in optical functional neuroimaging using eigenvector-based spatial filtering. Biomedical Imaging: Macro to Nano, 2004, IEEE International Symposium on. Pages 672-675 Vol. 1. April 15–18, 2004.
^ Manolakos, E.S. Stellakis, H.M. Brooks, D.H. Parallel processing for biomedical signal processing. Computer. Volume: 24, Issue: 3, Pages 33-43. March 1991.
^ Al-Asaad, H. Manolakos, E.S. A two-phase reconfiguration strategy for extracting linear arraysout of two-dimensional architectures. Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems, 1993, The IEEE International Workshop on. Pages 56-63. October 27–29, 1993.
^ Hussain Al-Asaad, John P. Hayes: ESIM: A Multimodel Design Error and Fault Simulator for Logic Circuits. VTS 2000: 221-230.
^ Frank Harary, John P. Hayes: Node fault tolerance in graphs. Networks 27(1): 19-23 (1996) ; and see also Frank_Harary#Mathematics where it states that Frank Harary has "an Erdős number of 1"
