Natalie Portman has damaged her silence on being sexualized as a baby star in Hollywood.
The “Black Swan” actress, who was solely 12 years previous when she made her large display performing debut within the R-rated movie “Léon: The Professional” in 1994, opened up about her surprising expertise in a dialog with Jenna Ortega for Interview journal revealed on Tuesday.
“I think there’s a public understanding of me that’s different from who I am,” Portman, 43, defined. “I’ve talked about it a little before – about how, as a kid, I was really sexualized, which I think happens to a lot of young girls who are on-screen.”
“I felt very scared by it,” she continued. “Obviously sexuality is a huge part of being a kid, but I wanted it to be inside of me, not directed towards me.”
Whereas the “May December” star admitted that she was “really sexualized” as a younger actress within the business, she additionally defined how she was capable of “protect” herself by performing “serious” and “smart.”
“I’m so studious. I’m smart, and that’s not the kind of girl you attack,” Portman stated. “I was like, if I create this image of myself, I’ll be left alone. It shouldn’t be a thing, but it worked.”
As for Ortega, who stars reverse Portman within the upcoming movie “The Gallerist,” she revealed that her expertise as a younger star in Hollywood has been “so jarringly different” from Portman and different former little one actors.
“As soon as someone mentions that they were a young actor, you start to look at them differently,” Ortega, 22, stated. “There’s something really, really heartwarming but also simultaneously devastating anytime I speak to actresses from previous generations, just because their experience is so jarringly different.”
“It’s nice to see how much it’s changed because I’ve been very fortunate in my upbringing, in our line of work,” the “Wednesday” actress added.
Later of their dialog, Portman described the “phases” her performing profession went by as she aged.
“There are definitely tropes, and I think at each phase in my career, there was a different one that I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve got to avoid this,’” the “Star Wars” actress shared.
“Obviously there was a long ‘Lolita’ phase,” she added. “Then there was the long ‘chick who helps the guy realize his emotional thing’ phase for about a decade.”
The Marvel star’s remarks about being sexualized as a baby in Hollywood echo related feedback Portman made in 2018 throughout an interview with Individuals.
“I understood very quickly, even as a 13-year-old, that if I were to express myself sexually, I would feel unsafe and that men would feel entitled to discuss and objectify my body to my great discomfort,” she stated on the time.
“I felt the need to cover my body and to inhibit my expression and my work in order to send my own message to the world that I’m someone worth of safety and respect,” Portman added.
The Oscar winner, who shares son Aleph, 13, and daughter Amalia, 8, together with her ex-husband, Benjamin Millepied, additionally stated that she would “not encourage young people to go into” performing throughout Selection’s “Awards Circuit” podcast in November 2023.
“I feel it was almost an accident of luck that I was not harmed,” Portman added in the course of the podcast, “also combined with very overprotective, wonderful parents.”
