NATALIE PORTMAN LIFE HISTORY

Natalie Hershlag (Hebrew:born June 9, 1981), better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an Israeli and American actress. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon. During the 1990s, Portman had major roles in films including Beautiful Girls and Anywhere but Here, before being cast for the role as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. In 1999, she enrolled at Harvard University to study psychology while she was working on the Star Wars films. 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 shaved her head and learned to speak with a British accent for her starring role in V for Vendetta (2006), for which she won a Constellation Award for Best Female Performance, and a Saturn Award for Best Actress. 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.

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

Portman was born in Jerusalem, Israel.er father, Avner Hershlag,is a fertility specialist.Her mother, Shelley Hershlag is an American homemaker who works as her agent. Portman's maternal ancestors were Jewish immigrants to the United States from Austria and Russia, and her paternal ancestors 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.

EARLY LIFE

Portman's parents met at a Jewish student center at Ohio State University, where her mother was selling ets. 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 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 Glen Cove, New York.She graduated from Syosset High School in Syosset, Long Island, in 1999. Portman skipped the premiere of Star Wars: Episode I so she could study for her high school final exams. In 2003, Portman graduated from Harvard College with a B.A. degree in psychology. "I don't care if [college] ruins my career," she told the New York Post, according to a Fox News article. "I'd rather be smart than a movie star."At Harvard, Portman was Alan Dershowitz's research assistant in a psychology lab. 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 towards Palestinians.

Portman took graduate courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the spring of 2004. In March 2006, she appeared as 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 professional 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 which she was named a semifinalist.In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal Lobe Activation During Object Permanence" during her psychology studies at Harvard.

Due to her scientific publications, Portman is among a very small number of professional actors with a finite Erdős–Bacon number, a concept that reflects the "small world phenomenon" in academia and entertainment by measuring the "collaborative distance" between that person and Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős and the number of links, through roles in films, by which the individual is separated from American actor Kevin Bacon.

CAREER

After filming Where the Heart Is, Portman moved into the dorms of Harvard University to pursue her bachelor's degree in psychology.She said in a 1999 interview that, with the exception of the Star Wars prequels, she would not act for the next four years in order to concentrate on studying. During the summer break from June to September 2000, Portman filmed Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones in Sydney, along with additional production in London.

In July 2001, Portman opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Chekhov's The Seagull, irected by Mike Nichols; she played the role of Nina alongside Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.The play opened at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.That same year, she was one of many celebrities who made cameo appearances in the 2001 comedy Zoolander. Portman was cast in a small role in the film Cold Mountain alongside Jude Law and Nicole Kidman.

In 2004, Portman appeared in the independent movies Garden State and Closer. Garden State was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival and won Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. Her performance as Alice in Closer earned her a Supporting Actress Golden Globe as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

The final Star Wars prequel, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, was released on May 19, 2005. The film was the highest grossing domestic film of the year,and was voted Favorite Motion Picture at the People's Choice Awards. 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.

2006-2010

Portman hosted Saturday Night Live on March 4, 2006. In a SNL Digital Short, she portrays herself as an angry gangsta rapper (with Andy Samberg as her Flavor Flav-esque partner in Viking garb) during a fauxinterview with Chris Parnell, saying she cheated at Harvard University while high on marijuana and cocaine The song, titled "Natalie's Rap," was released alongside other sketches from the show in 2009 on Incredibad, an album by the Lonely Island. 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.

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 she famously had her head shaved.

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"

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." 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. She was named one of the hottest women of film and TV by Blender Magazine.

In 2006, she filmed Wong Kar-wai's road movie My Blueberry Nights. She won acclaim for her role as gambler Leslie, because" or once she's not playing a waif or a child princess but a mature, full-bodied woman... but she's not coasting on her looks... She uses her appeal to simultaneously flirt with and taunt the gambler across the table." Portman voiced Bart Simpson's girlfriend Darcy in the episode "Little Big Girl" of The Simpsons' 18th season.

She appeared in Paul McCartney's music video "Dance Tonight" from his 2007 album Memory Almost Full, directed by Michel Gondry. Portman co-starred in the Wes Anderson short film Hotel Chevalier, opposite Jason Schwartzman, in which she performed her second nude scene (her first being Goya's Ghosts).

In May 2008, Portman served as the youngest member of the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival jury, and in 2009, she starred opposite Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal in the drama film Brothers, a remake of the 2004 Danish film of the same name. In 2008, Portman at age 27 made her directorial debut at the Venice Film Festival. "Eve", a short movie about a young woman who is dragged along on her grandmother's romantic date, was screened out of competition. Portman said she had always had a fascination with the older generation, and drew inspiration for the character from her own grandmother.

 

2010-PRESENT

In 2010, Portman played a veteran ballerina in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, a role of which critic Kurt Loder wrote: "Portman gives one of her most compelling performances in this film, which is saying something." To prepare for the role, she went through five to eight hours of dance training each day for six months and lost 20 lb. On January 16, 2011, she won the Best Actress Golden Globe Award for her performance. On February 27, 2011, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Portman's next film was No Strings Attached, which was released on January 21, 2011. She has also played the role of Jane Foster in Kenneth Branagh's upcoming film adaptation of Thor. Portman dropped out of the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet in the novel adaptation Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but she continues as producer.
 
PERSONAL LIFE

In the May 2002 issue of Vogue, Portman called actor/musician Lukas Haas and musician Moby her close friends. After starring in the video for his song "Carmensita", she began a relationship with American folk singer Devendra Banhart,which ended in September 2008. She met ballet dancer Benjamin Millepied in late 2009, on the set of her film Black Swan, for which Millepied acted as choreographer. By at least New Year's Eve 2009, the two had begun dating.On December 27, 2010, a Portman representative told the press that Portman and Millepied are engaged and expecting a child,due in the summer of 2011.

On the concept of the afterlife, Portman has said, "I don't believe in that. I believe this is it, and I believe it's the best way to live." 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."

WON ADARDS
* 2002 – Teen Choice Awards, Choice Movie Actress: Drama/Action Adventure: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

* 2004 – National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, Best Acting by an Ensemble: Closer (shared with Jude Law, Clive Owen, and Julia Roberts)

* 2004 – San Diego Film Critics Society, Best Supporting Actress: Closer

* 2005 – Golden Globe Awards, Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture: Closer

* 2007 – Saturn Awards, Best Actress: V for Vendetta

* 2010 – Boston Society of Film Critics, Best Actress: Black Swan

* 2010 – New York Film Critics Online, Best Actress: Black Swan

* 2010 – Online Film Critics Society, Best Actress: Black Swan

* 2011 - Academy Award, Best Actress: Black Swan

* 2011 – BAFTA Awards, Best Actress in a Leading Role: Black Swan

* 2011 – Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, Best Actress: Black Swan

* 2011 – Golden Globe Awards, Best Actress in a Motion Picture-Drama: Black Swan

* 2011 – Independent Spirit Awards, Best Female Lead: Black Swan

* 2011 – Screen Actors Guild Awards, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Black Swan