Natalie Portman The Other Boleyn Girl Interview

She was first approached by a Revlon agent when she was just ten years old. She was in a pizza parlour on Long Island minding her own business, and yet even then there was something about Natalie Portman that caught the eye. Portman had no interest in modeling however, she wanted to act and three years later she made her film debut in Luc Besson’s The Professional. From that moment on Portman took her profession seriously. So much so that to this day she’s a bit of an anomaly among child stars. When you start out so young and are surrounded by adults it’s easy to see why so many go off the rails at some stage.

Natalie Portman never did. To date, she’s never been to rehab. There are no X rated videos floating around Hollywood and no arrests. She worked and she learned. Yet despite a long list of film credits it was her role as Padme Amidala in Star Wars that put her on the map. She gets to act queenly again in her latest role. In The Other Boleyn Girl Portman plays Anne, the sister who stirred up one major ruckus in ye olde England. Gaynor Flynn caught up with the actress at the recent Berlin Film Festival.

Gaynor Flynn: Have you been having nightmares about being beheaded lately?

Natalie Portman: No. [laughs]


Gaynor Flynn: The director Justin Chadwick said those scenes were particularly intense to shoot.

Natalie Portman: It was very intense and partly because of the location. We shot in Dover in December and it was like a wind tunnel. Literally our entire crew had hard hats on because it was too dangerous to be there because literally it was like a vortex. It was crazy and then we were going on set and going, what about us? [laughs] Because everyone else had their heads protected because everything was flying around. So it was that atmosphere of spirits or something being around.


Gaynor Flynn: What attracted you to this role?

Natalie Portman: I felt that Anne was a role I hadn’t played before and I rarely read in scripts this female that is just so many different things. She’s strong yet she can be vulnerable and she’s ambitious and calculating and will step on people but also feels remorse for it. There’s all these different sides to her. She’s a very proactive character she makes a lot of decisions throughout the film and so often female characters in movies are sort of reactive characters. They’re reacting to what men do to them or they’re spurring a man along through his choices and his changes. So I just felt her to be a very rare character.


Gaynor Flynn: Do you think Hollywood is at all like the court of Henry VIII?

Natalie Portman: I think every community has its own set of romances and gossip and scandal and competition and rivalry and all of that.


Gaynor Flynn: How difficult was the accent to master? Did you try to maintain it all the time, both on and off set?

Natalie Portman: It was challenging and I started working on the accent a month before shooting. Everyday I was doing classes with a great dialect Jill McCulloch who was with us on set the whole time. But I can’t stay in it the whole time. It’s too strange for me to call my mom and be like ‘hello mummy’. So I have to go back into American.


Gaynor Flynn: What if anything did you relate to?

Natalie Portman: She just interested me. I don’t know if I related to her. I don’t usually think how am I like this character but you can empathise with someone and you can try to understand their motivations and I felt I kind of understood why she did what she did when I read the script. But it wasn’t because I was like oh I’m like her.


Gaynor Flynn: Anne is extremely ambitious, how ambitious are you as a person?

Natalie Portman: I want to succeed but not at the expense of anybody else. That’s ambition but I think in a positive way. I want to succeed and I want other people to succeed and I think Anne is willing to sacrifice people she really loves for her own betterment.


Gaynor Flynn: In the film Anne Boleyn is not only shown as a victim but also driving her own destiny. How realistic is this? Did you research her at all

Natalie Portman: I did a lot of research but I think you have to accept that all history is fiction. All history includes the bias of the teller and their own agendas. There are feminists who want to paint Anne one way. There are biographies from the period that painted her as a witch and said she had six fingers and she had cast a spell on the king. So there are all these different versions. I wanted to stick to our story but I definitely did a lot of looking into those biographies and trying to find our own truth for our story because obviously we’re telling the story that Phillipa told in her book very creatively but very accurately in terms of time line and detail.


Gaynor Flynn: What’s it like to wear those costumes.

Natalie Portman: Amazing, I mean Sandy Powell did an amazing job with the costumes, they’re really, really incredible and it was very helpful to the characters because it changes the way you move and stand and everything and especially with Anne the colours were so bold, it really inspired some of her daring.


Gaynor Flynn: At the press conference you and Scarlet Johansson admired each other. Did you know each other before this film?

Natalie Portman: We had met each other briefly, like socially. We’d end up at the same parties and we’d say ‘oh hi, nice to see you’ whatever but that was sort of the extent of our interaction. So this is the first time we’d gotten to work together.


Gaynor Flynn: Are there any special traits you admire about Scarlet?

Natalie Portman: She’s always just true in what she does. I always believe her in whatever she’s doing on screen. I just believe her and I think its just very honest work and she’s really specifically good. You can be on her face for like minutes at a time and she doesn’t have to say anything and you can see the thoughts going across her face its really very subtle and very thoughtful performance I think and it’s really great to get to see her up close.


Gaynor Flynn: And as a person?

Natalie Portman: As a person she’s extremely strong and she always says what she feels. It’s impressive because a lot of women, and I am among them, will be very careful. I might be like, ‘this might sound stupid but is this what they would do in the scene’. She’s not like that at all. She’s very direct. Very opinionated and that was inspiring to be around too because I tend to be a lot more timid.


Gaynor Flynn: So in real life would you say you’re a little shyer than the character you played on screen?

Natalie Portman: Certainly but I hate comparing myself to characters because I’m not like any character.


Gaynor Flynn: You began your career at a very young age. Do you feel you missed out on anything?

Natalie Portman: I definitely missed out on things but I also definitely gained things from that experience. You know I was travelling to Japan when I was 12 years old which none of my classmates got to do. But I also wasn’t on the soccer team but I was in school full time. I never missed school for work, because I was only allowed to shoot movies in the summer and I went to public school so I was with regular kids and I’m still friends with all my high school friends so I had that experience. Also when you’re a kid actor you get applauded a lot for being really grown up so you act really grown up all the time. Like everyone’s really impressed when you act really mature so you act really mature even if you’re not. So there’s definitely that side where I’m like oh I should of enjoyed being immature when it was acceptable. Now it’s too late. Now no one will think its cute anymore.


Gaynor Flynn: Do you wonder what your life would be like if you hadn’t discovered acting? And how do you handle the celebrity side of the business?

Natalie Portman: I do wonder but you can never know. You only get one path so I do wonder but I’m not sure. And as for the whole celebrity thing, I’d say it has more positive aspects than negative aspects. I have really lucky access to travel to meet people to go to places I’m interested in going to. To see things I’m interested in seeing. It’s a very lucky position over all.


Gaynor Flynn: In interviews people always talk to you about having a degree and how there’ so many options open to you, outside of acting. Would you say that you love acting or are you just doing it for now?

Natalie Portman: I do love acting but I do love other things too and I don’t want to limit myself. I don’t really feel like I’m at a point in my life where I could say forever or never about anything. I guess not committing to anything for ever but I’m very committed to it right now and I love what I do.


Gaynor Flynn: What was Harvard like, was it important to you to have that normal aspect of life?

Natalie Portman: It was very important. I always think of like Hollywood as normal people and Harvard is extraordinary people because everybody I know from school is just amazing in what ever they do. They’re just the best of the best in every field.


Gaynor Flynn: I understand you design shoes now?

Natalie Portman: [laughs] It was sort of like I couldn’t find shoes because I didn’t want to wear any animal products so I just couldn’t find any. I never wanted to be a shoe designer, it was never ever something I thought about but I was just like they don’t exist, we should make them. I’m not making money off of it. All of my proceeds are going to animal charities so it’s something I have enjoyed doing but it was born out of necessity. I’ve found it interesting though, there’s such a whole other world surrounding the designing of shoes and marketing them and so on.


Gaynor Flynn: Would you move into fashion design do you think?

Natalie Portman: I don’t think so. I don’t think I have a particular talent for and it’s not really my thing. And I have no problem finding the clothes that I like. There are plenty of clothes out there that I like.


Gaynor Flynn: So you don’t wear leather?

Natalie Portman: Yeah and I haven’t and even in work I don’t wear any animal products. So even in the movie all the fur and stuff is all fake and shoes and everything. Luckily everyone I’ve ever worked with has been very obliging about that.

The Other Boleyn Girl

Starring: Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana
Director: Justin Chadwick
Screenwriter: Peter Morgan
Genre: Dramas
Producer: Alison Owen
Composer: Edward Shearmur

Synopsis:
Based on the best selling novel by Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl is an engrossing and sensual tale of intrigue, romance, and betrayal set against the backdrop of a defining moment in history. Two sisters, Anne (Natalie Portman) and Mary (Scarlett Johansson) Boleyn, are driven by their ambitious father and uncle to advance the family’s power and status by courting the affections of the King of England (Eric Bana).

Leaving behind the simplicity of country life, the girls are thrust into the dangerous and thrilling world of court life - and what began as a bid to help their family develops into a ruthless rivalry between Anne and Mary for the love of the king. Initially, Mary wins King Henry’s favor and becomes his mistress, bearing him an illegitimate child. But Anne, clever, conniving, and fearless, edges aside both her sister and Henry’s wife, Queen Katherine of Aragon, in her relentless pursuit of the king.

Despite Mary’s genuine feelings for Henry, her sister Anne has her sights set on the ultimate prize; Anne will not stop until she is Queen of England. As the Boleyn girls battle for the love of a king - one driven by ambition, the other by true affection - England is torn apart. Despite the dramatic consequences, the Boleyn girls ultimately find strength and loyalty in each other, and they remain forever connected by their bond as sisters.