I can’t play screen mum to child who’s not mine, says Natalie Portman
SHE has played everyone from Anne Boleyn to a Star Wars heroine throughout her wide-ranging career.
But it seems that the role Natalie Portman is most uncomfortable playing on screen is a mother.
Miss Portman, 38, who has son Aleph, eight, and two-year-old daughter Amalia with husband Benjamin Millepied, said: ‘I just feel weird if I’m at work pretending to be a mum to some kid who’s not my kid. So, I’ve been trying out wild experiences like being an astronaut or a pop star.’
Portman will play an astronaut in the forthcoming Lucy In The Sky as well as the ‘female Thor’ for the fourth film in Marvel’s Thor fantasy franchise.
The Oscar-winning actress, who rose to fame in Luc Besson’s Leon aged 13, said that women spend their lives ‘fighting against only being valued for your looks’.
She told Harper’s Bazaar: ‘It becomes a very tenuous thing, to be defined by the gaze of others, the opinion of others. And beauty is, by definition, ephemeral, it’s a thing that you can’t trap in time. So, to make a lifetime worthwhile and have meaning cannot rest on beauty.’
Miss Portman has been vocal in her support of the #MeToo and Time’s Up campaigns and recently said that she had built new friendships as a result. She added: ‘I’ve been inspired by the many women I’ve met through Time’s Up ... who are doing such impressive creative work. They are inspiring activists and also great friends. Whenever I think I have too much to handle, I see what they’re doing and know I can do more.’ The September issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK is on sale this Friday.