Thursday 11 April 2013

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman is an actress and model with dual American and Israeli citizenship born Natalie Hershlag; June 9, 1981. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 action film Léon: The Professional, but mainstream success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (released in 1999, 2002 and 2005).[4] In 1999, she enrolled at Harvard University to study psychology while still working as an actress. 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.[4] In 2005, Portman received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture for the drama Closer. She won a Constellation Award for Best Female Performance and a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her starring role in V for Vendetta (2006). 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.[7] Portman's directorial debut, Eve, opened the 65th Venice International Film Festival's shorts competition in 2008.[8] Portman directed a segment of the collective film New York, I Love You.
In 2011, Portman won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, the BAFTA Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award, and the Independent Spirit Award for her lead performance as Nina Sayers in Black Swan.

 Early life

Portman was born in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Shelley (née Stevens), an American homemaker who works as Portman's agent, and Avner Hershlag, an Israeli citizen who is a fertility specialist and gynecologist. Portman's maternal ancestors were Jewish immigrants to the United States, from Austria and Russia (her mother's family had changed their surname from "Edelstein" to "Stevens"). Her paternal grandparents 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.

Portman's parents met at a Jewish student center at Ohio State University, where her mother was selling tickets. 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,[19] has said that although she "really love[s] the States... my heart's in Jerusalem. That's where I feel at home."[16]
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[23] and attended a Jewish elementary school, the Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County, New York. She graduated from Syosset High School in Syosset, Long Island in 1999.[26] Portman skipped the premiere of her film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, so she could study for her high school final exams.[29]
In 2003, Portman graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. degree in psychology. "I don't care if [college] ruins my career," she told the New York Post. "I'd rather be smart than a movie star."[33][34] At Harvard, Portman was Alan Dershowitz's research assistant. While attending Harvard, she was a resident of Lowell House[37] and wrote a letter to the Harvard Crimson in response to an essay critical of Israeli actions toward Palestinians.[38]
Portman took graduate courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the spring of 2004.[39] In March 2006, she was a guest lecturer at a Columbia University course in terrorism and counterterrorism, where she spoke about her film V for Vendetta.[40]
Portman has professed an interest in foreign languages since childhood and has studied French,[41] Japanese,[41] German,[42] and Arabic.

As a student, Portman co-authored two research papers that were published in 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.[44] In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal Lobe Activation during Object Permanence: Data from Near-Infrared Spectroscopy" during her psychology studies at Harvard. This publication placed Portman among a very small number of professional actors with a defined ErdÅ‘s–Bacon number.

 Career

 Early work
Portman started dancing lessons at age four[4] and performed in local troupes. At the age of ten, a Revlon agent asked her to become a child model,[4][49] 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."[50]
On school holidays, Portman attended theater camps. When she was ten, Portman auditioned for the Off-Broadway show Ruthless!, a musical about a girl who is prepared to commit murder to get the lead in a school play. Portman and future pop star Britney Spears were chosen as the understudies for star Laura Bell Bundy.[39] In 1994, she auditioned for the role of a child who befriends a middle-aged hitman in Luc Besson's film, Léon: The Professional. Soon after getting the part, she took her grandmother's maiden name "Portman" as her stage name in the interest of privacy and to protect her family's identity.[4][51] Léon: The Professional opened on November 18, 1994, marking her feature film debut. That same year she appeared in the short film Developing, which aired on television.

1995–99

During the mid-1990s, Portman had roles in the films Heat, Everyone Says I Love You, and Mars Attacks!, as well as a major role in Beautiful Girls.[4] She was the first choice to play Juliet in William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, but producers felt her age wasn't suitable.[49] In 1997, Portman played the role of Anne Frank in a Broadway adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank.
Also in 1997, Portman was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. The first film, The Phantom Menace, began filming in June 1997 and opened in May 1999.[4][52] Following production on The Phantom Menace, she initially turned down a lead role in the film Anywhere but Here after learning it would involve a sex scene, but director Wayne Wang and actress Susan Sarandon (who played Portman's mother in the film) demanded a rewrite of the script. Portman was shown a new draft, and she decided to accept the role.[4] The film opened in late 1999, and she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Ann August.[53] Critic Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon called Portman "astonishing" and said that "[u]nlike any number of actresses her age, she's neither too maudlin nor too plucky."[54] She then signed on to play the lead role of a teenaged mother in Where the Heart Is, which opened in April 2000.

2000-05

After filming Where the Heart Is, Portman moved into the dorms of Harvard University to pursue her bachelor's degree in psychology.[4] 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.[55] 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.[56]
In July 2001, Portman opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Mike Nichols; she played the role of Nina alongside Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.[4] The play opened at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.[57] 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.[4]
In 2004, Portman appeared in the independent movies Garden State and Closer.[4] 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.[58][59]
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[60] 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.

2006-09

Portman hosted Saturday Night Live on March 4, 2006.[62] 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 faux-interview with Chris Parnell, saying she cheated at Harvard University while high on marijuana and cocaine.[63] The song, titled "Natalie's Rap," was released – alongside other sketches from the show – in 2009 on Incredibad, an album by the Lonely Island.[64] 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 she famously had her head shaved.[65]
Portman has commented on V for Vendetta's political relevance and mentioned that the main character, who recruits Evey to join 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".[66]
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."[65] 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.[67]
In 2006, she filmed Wong Kar-wai's road movie My Blueberry Nights. She won acclaim for her role as gambler Leslie, because "[f]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."[68] 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.[70] Portman co-starred in the Wes Anderson short film Hotel Chevalier, opposite Jason Schwartzman. In May 2008, Portman served as the youngest member of the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival jury,[7] 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.[71]
In 2008, Portman at age 27 made her directorial debut at the Venice Film Festival. Eve, a short film 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

Portman played a young ballerina in Darren Aronofsky's 2010 film Black Swan,[73] a role of which critic Kurt Loder wrote: "Portman gives one of her most compelling performances in this film, which is saying something."[74] To prepare for the role, she went through five to eight hours of dance training each day for six months and lost 20 pounds.[75] In 2011, she won both the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Actress.

After Portman's Oscar win, controversy arose over who performed the bulk of the on-screen dancing in Black Swan.[78] Sarah Lane, one of Portman's dancing doubles in the film, claimed that Portman performed only about 5 percent of the full-body shots, adding that she was asked by the film's producers not to speak publicly about it during the Oscar season.[79] Director Aronofsky defended Portman by issuing a statement insisting that Portman performed 80 percent of the on-screen dancing in the movie.

Portman co-starred in No Strings Attached, alongside Ashton Kutcher. She was also an executive producer on the film. It was released on January 21, 2011. She then starred in Your Highness, opposite James Franco and Danny McBride, and also played the role of Jane Foster in Kenneth Branagh's superhero film adaptation Thor.[80] In 2010, Portman dropped out of the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet in the novel adaptation, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but she will continue to be the producer of the film.
In February 2012, it was reported that she had signed on for two Terrence Malick projects, one named Knight of Cups and one yet untitled, both planned for release within two years.
In April 2012, Portman starred in Paul McCartney's music video, "My Valentine", alongside Johnny Depp


Filmography

film

Title Year Role Notes
Léon: The Professional 1994 Mathilda
Developing 1994 Nina Short
Heat 1995 Lauren Gustafson
Beautiful Girls 1996 Marty
Everyone Says I Love You 1996 Laura Dandridge
Mars Attacks! 1996 Taffy Dale
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 1999 Padmé Amidala
Anywhere but Here 1999 Ann August
Where the Heart Is 2000 Novalee Nation
Zoolander 2001 Herself Cameo
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones 2002 Padmé Amidala
Cold Mountain 2003 Sara
Garden State 2004 Samantha
Closer 2004 Alice Ayres
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith 2005 Padmé Amidala
Free Zone 2005 Rebecca
V for Vendetta 2006 Evey Hammond
Paris, je t'aime 2006 Francine Appears in the segment directed by Tom Tykwer
Goya's Ghosts 2006 Inés Bilbatúa & Alicia
My Blueberry Nights 2007 Leslie
The Darjeeling Limited 2007 Jack's Ex-Girlfriend
Hotel Chevalier 2007 Jack's Ex-Girlfriend Short
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium 2007 Molly Mahoney
The Other Boleyn Girl 2008 Anne Boleyn
The Other Woman 2009 Emilia Greenleaf[119] Also executive producer
New York, I Love You 2009 Rifka Also directed a segment on this film
Brothers 2009 Grace Cahill
Hesher 2010 Nicole Also producer
Black Swan 2010 Nina Sayers
No Strings Attached 2011 Emma Kurtzman Also executive producer
Your Highness 2011 Isabel
Thor 2011 Jane Foster
Thor: The Dark World 2013 Jane Foster Post-Production
Knight of Cups 2013 Post-Production
Untitled Terrence Malick Project 2013 Post-Production
Jane Got a Gun 2014 Jane Hammond Filming

Television

Title Year Role Notes
Sesame Street 2003/2004 Herself Season 34, Episode: "Oscar Needs a Change of Scenery"
Season 35, Episode: "Alan's Vacation Replacement"[120]
Saturday Night Live 2006 Host Season 31, Episode 13
The Armenian Genocide 2006 Aurora Mardiganian (narration) Documentary film[121]
The Simpsons 2007, 2012 Darcy (voice) Episodes: "Little Big Girl", "Moonshine River"[69]

Theatre

Production Year Role Notes
Ruthless! 1994 Tina Denmark Understudy
Players Theatre
The Diary of Anne Frank 1997 Anne Frank Music Box Theatre
The Seagull 2001 Nina Delacorte Theater

read more at wikipedia


Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics

Natalie Portman wiki and pics


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