Natalie Portman and the Fountain of Youth

Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:

Natalie Portman's pretending, Kristen Stewart's Love, Antoine Fuqua's Michael Jackson, and getting lost in the woods.

Let’s go!

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NATALIE PORTMAN AND THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

Black Swan. Searchlight Pictures.

Natalie Portman’s best performances are characters consumed with pretending.

These roles span from Closer (2004), where as Alice/Jane she spends the entirety of a four-year relationship under a false name, to Black Swan (2010), where her character is pathologically obsessed with perfecting a ballet role, to Jackie (2016), where she continues to “perform” the role of a collected first lady even as she falls apart following the death of her husband, JFK.

This skill peaks in Todd Haynes’ May December (2023).

In the film, Portman plays an actress researching a tabloid star (Julianne Moore) infamous for raping a young teenager and later marrying him. Portman mirrors not just the woman’s behavioral tics but also recreates her reality, going so far as to seduce her husband for research.

Portman explained:

“That’s something that we talked about, Todd and I. For someone who’s always performing, what if their most true is when they’re literally performing? What if the most honest they ever are and the most free they are is from the artifice? There’s freedom in the mask.”