Few moments at this week’s Lumière Film Festival drew as much fervor as Natalie Portman’s masterclass. As one of this year’s guests of honor, the Oscar-winning actor held the packed Pathé Bellecour theater spellbound – poised, luminous and down-to-earth – with queues outside snaking for dozens of meters from those hoping for a last-minute seat.
Over the course of the talk, she reflected on a career that has moved with ease between studio blockbusters and intimate auteur films, explaining that she founded her own production company “to create the movies that I want to see in the world, that I want to participate in.”
“I didn’t grow up with much of a cinematic knowledge or appreciation,” she admitted with a laugh. “I was really seeing kind of mainstream movies. I grew up with “The Lion King,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Pretty Woman”… It was only after I started making films that I started learning about cinematic history.”
That discovery came through the filmmakers she worked with, she said, who introduced her to directors such as John Cassavettes, Michael Haneke, Wong Kar-wai or Robert Bresson. From there, her taste and understanding of cinema expanded, feeding her career choices.
Asked about the performers who inspired her, Portman spoke with admiration about of Gena Rowlands, Julianne Moore, Isabelle Huppert and Nicole Kidman. With great affection she cited Diane Keaton, who died on Oct. 11. “She gave female characters the opportunity to be as complex as the male characters we commonly see,” she said. “They were neurotic, they were funny, they were smart, they were emotional, they were weird. She let women be weird on screen. [She was] someone who was unapologetically herself, and you fell in love with her because of that.”
The conversation then turned to her early years. Portman was only 12 when she made her first film, Luc Besson’s “Léon: The Professional,” and she recalled how naturally she took to acting. “It’s actually the most childlike thing to do,” she smiled. “You’re pretending. Being an actor is acting like a child all the time. All children are actors. (…) It’s part of natural human behavior.”
Portman famously attended Harvard University after shooting “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” – “I’m from a very academic family and it was never a choice.”
Asked whether studying psychology helped her better approach her characters, she drew a clear parallel. “I think it’s really the same practice,” she replied. “It’s the same question: why do people do what they do? What is someone feeling at any given moment? What are the interesting contradictory feelings that we have? Observation, observation, observation – watching people, noting behavior, and trying to understand why.”
That same spirit of inquiry has defined her approach to researching her characters. Whether it was reading “millions of books” to play Anne Boleyn in “The Other Boleyn Girl,” watching “millions of videos and documentaries,” and listening to audio tapes for “Jackie,” or working on the troubled superstar character of Celeste for “Vox Lux.”
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“When I had to learn what a K-hole looked like… I wasn’t going to do ketamine to learn that, so I went to YouTube,” she said with a smile, describing the platform as “a wonderful resource.”
Portman was also keen to speak about her work as a producer and her interest in animation, mentioning her collaboration with French director Ugo Bienvenu on “Arco,” which picked up the top prize at the world’s biggest animation festival in Annecy and is out this week in France.
She said she was struck by how horizontal and collaborative the animation world could be, with artists often moving fluidly between roles.
Her admiration for collaborative leadership extended to her creative partners. Of “Black Swan” director Darren Aronofsky, she said: “He has such a confidence in his vision, but he’ll always take someone else’s good idea. That combination of confidence and humility – that’s what marks greatness.”
Asked what was left of her cult character of Nina in “Black Swan,” Portman answered straight-faced, “I still do the butt exercises I learned while training” – before switching to French with a flash of humor and a wink to her French audience with perfect comic timing: “les exercices pour le derrière!”
As the conversation came to a close, Portman was asked what advice she would give her 12-year-old self about to shoot “Léon” if she met her today. “Play, have fun,” she said simply.
A retrospective of Portman’s work is screened at Lumière as part of her visit, featuring “Heat,” “V for Vendetta,” “Black Swan,” and “Jackie.”
The Lumière Film Festival runs in Lyon until Oct. 19.
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