Natalie Portman: "Being s-xualized as a child took away my own s-xuality"
The Oscar-winning actress reflects on the importance of not turning young actresses into objects of desire for their roles in film and television.
With only 11 years old, Natalie Portman fell in love with many in her role as Matilda in "The Professional", a 1994 film by Luc Besson in which she played a girl whose family has been murdered and learns to handle handguns of the hitman León, to whom he comes to declare his love. Two years later she premiered "Beautiful girls", the Ted Demme film whose story revolves around how the protagonist, Timoty Hutton, feels a deep desire for a young Portman who is just 13 years old. These papers that consecrated the Israeli interpreter also made her an object of desire, barely having reached the age of majority. At 39, the winner of an Oscar for Black Swan has revealed what this meant for her. “Being se-ualized as a child took away my own se-uality because it scared me,” Portman said on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast.
"I was certainly aware of how I was portrayed, mainly in the kind of journalism that existed when the movies came out, like that Lolita figure and stuff," added the actress, before explaining that it was her strong personality that made her feel safe. "The only way she could be sure was to say, 'I'm conservative and I'm serious, and you have to respect me, and I'm smart and don't look at me that way. A lot of people got the impression that I was very serious, prudish and conservative growing up… I consciously cultivated it because it was a way to make me feel safe. If someone respects you, they won't make you feel like an object," said Portman, who describes herself as "boring."
In 1997, Portman was offered the title role in "Lolita," Adrian Lyne's film adaptation of Vladimir Nabokovse's 1955 book about a middle-aged man who has a se*ual relationship with a 12-year-old girl. She rejected it due to the explicit and lewd content of the tape. Refusing roles and refusing to do kissing, love or love scenes became part of Portman's self-defense techniques, who preferred to play more age-appropriate roles in "Mars Attack" and "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace": " As usual, at that age you have your own se-uality, your own desire, and you want to explore things, and you want to be open, but you don't feel safe, especially when there are older men who are interested in you and you have to tell them: 'No. , no no no no'".
Recall that Natalie Portman returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as part of "Thor: Love and Thunder", directed by Taika Waititi, which opens in theaters on May 6, 2022.
