by Paul Fischer
College
Is Where Her Heart Is
the CrankyCritic.com Interview by Paul Fischer
19-year old Natalie Portman has gone from regal Princess in Star Wars to pregnant teenager in Where the Heart Is, but in between she's a hard working college student who still hasn't decided if acting is her thing. That's hard to imagine, given her escalating popularity, and the imminent release of two more Star Wars films, the next of which starts shooting in Sydney Australia in just a few months. Paul Fischer met the beautiful young actress in Los Angeles.
It's hard to believe that the young actress sitting next to me was the same girl who was heavy in regal make up for last year's megahit, The Phantom Menace. But Natalie Portman is confident, beautiful and unaware of her own fame. Perhaps that's because she's about to head on a plane to resume her academic lifestyle at university, back on the East coast. It is there at college, where she's currently studying a variety of liberal arts subjects, where she remains grounded from the world of movies, which she regularly inhabits.
At
college (the name of which she refuses to publicly disclose), she is removed
from what she once jokingly referred to as "star wars geeks". Yet Star
Wars, one of the most commercially successful films of all times,
was not as huge and ridiculous for the actress, as one would imagine.
"I really did expect it to be completely overwhelming afterwards. I was
imagining myself walking down the street and being mobbed and not being
able to go anywhere. It's not like that at all. I pretty much have anonymity,
and it really hasn't changed from before I did Star Wars; if anything
I get recognized a little more, like once a week, which is not a big deal
when you consider being in a film that big." Perhaps that might change
when she heads down to Australia shortly to shoot Episode 2 in
the Star Wars saga, but the impending craziness aside, is looking
forward to working in Sydney. "I'm so excited to be doing the movies there;
I think Sydney is a cool city, and I'm excited to be meeting up with cast
and crew members from the last movie; it'll be fun to see them again."
The fantasy
world of the big-budget Star Wars trilogy is a far cry from her
latest film, Where the Heart Is, in which she plays pregnant 17-year-old
Novalee Nation , who runs away from her Tennessee home toward the bright
lights of California, accompanied by her boyfriend, Willy Jack Pickins
(Dylan Bruno). But Willy gets cold feet and abandons her at a Wal-Mart
in Sequoia, Oklahoma. Novalee's life savings amount to $7.77, so she moves
into the Wal-Mart, sleeping there at night and venturing out during the
day. With the help of Sister Husband (Stockard 
Channing),
an eccentric nun, and Lexie Coop (Ashley Judd), a nurses' aide,
Novalee tries to get her life in order for the sake of her expectant child,
Americus Nation.
Despite appearing in many high-profile films of late, this is the first movie, which Portman is required to really carry. No mean task, but Natalie doesn't see it that way. "I never really thought about it as carrying a film, because although she's probably the character around which this story is based, I don't see her as the lead character. There are so many other great characters in the film, and played by these great actresses, that she's the one that ties them up altogether." Portman is very choosy about what she does, having turned down more than she is offered. She says that was keen to take on this film, because she "loved the idea that it was a kind of fable, that it has these crazy stories that happen, that's it's an enhanced reality, and that there's this moral line that runs through it. I also really appreciated the sweetness behind it; without being embarrassed about it, it's good natured and well meaning." She adds that these are elements rarely found in movies today, "which tend to be about dysfunctional families and how screwed up everyone gets. Whereas in this case, it's more to do with how you can transcend what life hands you."
Portman
literally grows up on screen in this film, beautifully transforming herself
from a naïve 
17-year
old teenager from the backwaters of Tennessee, to a confident young woman
and mother in her early twenties. Making that transformation work looked
harder than it was for the equally confident actress who played her. "It
was actually fun. At the back of my mind I had this caricature that was
made more real by actually being among people when we were shooting at
the trailer park. You see that these are real people with lives who dress
like I do, who talk like I do and who are born into a situation where
they can't afford to have a house without wheels." She sense this type
of character "is reflected in the film, exemplified by the diversity of
characters presented: It's not one image of what trailer life park is
like. It was also fun to find the accent and being the pregnant chick;
it was kind of funny, but then you really find the emotions behind it
afterwards."
Born in Jerusalem, Israel, to an artist mother and Israeli doctor father, Portman move to New York when she was three. Despite leaving at such an early age, the 19-year old still returns to her native homeland annually, and says that even now, continues to have an affinity with the country of her birth. "I think I'm pretty divided, because I've grown up as an American, but I feel lucky to have the identity that's given to me by knowing where I'm from and where my people are from; I do feel a sense of belonging in Israel." She also fells "comfortable in the United States, and this [American] is the culture with which I'm most familiar. But I don't necessarily feel I belong here." Portman was raised on New York's Long Island, and ultimately was discovered by a modeling agent who signed her on the spot. Her modeling stint led to an audition for Luc Besson's The Professional. Due to her age (she was 12 when the film was cast), Portman was initially turned down for the lead role of Mathilda, a girl who asks a hit man Jean Reno to train her as an assassin to avenge her brother's death and falls in love with him in the process. However, she ultimately won the part, and her 1994 film debut won her positive notices. In interviews, Portman allowed that making her first film in the toughest sections of Spanish Harlem was frightening-but not quite so frightening, she claimed, as going back to school once shooting wrapped. "It was hard to be a normal kid after that", she recalls.
Portman then
took on the role of Al Pacino's stepdaughter in another demanding film,
Michael Mann's Heat (1995). She followed this up with lighter fare
when she played Jack Nicholson's daughter in Mars Attacks! (1996),
following up the same year to make Woody Allen's musical comedy Everyone
Says I Love You. The film met with a decidedly happier fate among
critics and filmgoers than her previous venture, and Portman continued
to ride high with the success of her third film of 1996, Beautiful
Girls. For her performance as Marty, the precocious teen who nearly
steals a much older Timothy 
Hutton
away from his fiancée, Portman received adulation from a host of critics,
some of whom stated that she was the best part of the whole movie. After
turning down title roles in both Lolita and Romeo + Juliet,
Portman took on another title role with her 1997 Broadway debut in The
Diary of Anne Frank. She stayed with the show until May of 1998, during
which time she received positive notices for her performance. After lending
her voice to The Prince of Egypt (1998), Portman took on her most
talked-about role to date, that of Queen Amidala in The Phantom Menace.
The actress remained choosy about what to do, and she turned down more
than she did, she says, because of the often-gratuitous nature of the
material. "Young actors often don't think of the consequences of doing
nudity or sex scenes. They want the role so badly they agree to be exploited
and then end up embarrassing family, friends and even strangers;" which
is why she even turned down the lead teen role of Ang Lee's The Ice
Storm. The part eventually went to Christina Ricci.
Portman is now studying intently at an east coast university, refusing to officially disclose which one "because I need to protect my privacy." Here is an actress who is a student first, a star second, and has always believed that she'd rather be smart than be a movie star. She admits that while being both is a challenge, she's finding it increasingly easy to do so. "Oh definitely so, though at the same time, you can also be smart without going to college - I just don't think I could", she quickly adds laughingly. "I think I would feel gypped if I didn't get the opportunity to grow and explore. It's such an amazing experience to have access to these huge sources of knowledge. To be around people my age who are brilliant is really amazing." There's no doubt, listening to fiercely intellectual actress, that if given the opportunity to give up acting and replace it with her other love, medicine, that she might go for it. But at this stage, she is yet to make her mind up. "I don't really think I'll ever make a decision; I think it's just like: What do I feel like doing right now, and I feel lucky to have the knowledge and opportunity to do whatever I want." Which includes studying psychology, Hebrew and literature on the one hand, and going off to Sydney to the set of Star Wars Episode Two. There's no question as to which is the hardest. "College is a lot tougher than I thought it would be; I just thought it would be like the hardest week in high school, but it's not. When you get 500 pages a week of reading a week, plus papers and test, you have a lot more respect knowing that others have gone through this." That respect is mutual!
Where the Heart Is website CrankyCritic® review of the film Paul Fischer's review