Natalie portman

Is still taking RISKS…

The Vox Lux star is so hot right now.

Ithink every person has a different self that they show the world and that they have privately… but with public figures that’s exacerbated,” says Natalie Portman of her edgy new role as a self-sabotaging pop star in Brady Corbet’s study of 21st Century celebrity, Vox Lux. She would know. Fiercely private since finding fame at 13 as Mathilda in Leon, Portman has long walked a fine line between keeping her personal life – marriage and two kids – private, her public persona carefully curated.

That’s changed with the #TimesUp movement, the 37-year-old founding member admitting that the two sides of her self have collided in pursuit of better communication and sisterhood among the women of Hollywood.

She’s opened up about her own sexual objectification as a child star, openly supported #MeToo victims and spearheaded industry get-togethers. That muddying of the waters has informed her portrayal of Vox Lux’s Celeste, an imploding pop singer who’s

negotiated stardom over the years after lone surviving a school shooting: “It was this character that was so original and wild and extreme, and I wanted to get to be her,” Portman says.

Though Corbet compares her character to Kanye West, Portman watched In Bed With Madonna and Gaga: Five Foot Two to get a sense of “what that life is like” and unpicked her own relationship with fame to create a fearless, strutting, big performance that has prompted awards buzz.

She’ll be further exploring the facets of public persona next year in Xavier Dolan’s film about a TV star’s correspondence with a young actor,

The Death And Life Of John F. Donovan, Reese Witherspoon-produced Pale Blue Dot – the tale of a female astronaut who returns to Earth and unravels – and her sophomoric directorial bow in a biopic about warring celebrity agony aunts.

Though the awards are nice, the aim – she says – is to keep finding projects that are interesting and meaningful. And to be brave enough to fail. “It takes the fear out of the risk a little more,” she says. “I’ve been in stuff that didn’t work and it didn’t kill me...”

ETA | 2019 / Vox Lux And ThE dEATh And LifE of John f. donoVAn opEn nExT yEAr. pALE BLuE doT is in producTion.