How Star Wars Changed Natalie Portman Forever

Natalie Portman has accomplished quite a lot as an actor throughout her career. After starting out as a child actor and understudy in off-Broadway musicals, she made her screen debut at age 12 in Luc Besson’s 1994 film “Léon: The Professional” as an orphaned girl befriended by a hitman. From the start, she proved herself to be a sought-after talent in the industry, with Besson even willing to change the script to accommodate her concerns about the film’s content.

Little has changed in recent years. Portman remains a bankable star in action blockbusters like “Thor: Love and Thunder,” while also racking up award nominations for films like “Jackie” and “May December.” In 2010, she won Best Actress at the Academy Awards for “Black Swan,” in which she and co-star Mila Kunis were forever changed after starring as rival ballerinas. However, there was one notable franchise that made Portman the A-list star she is today.

That franchise was none other than “Star Wars,” with Portman playing the integral role of Queen Padme Amidala in the prequel trilogy, starting with “The Phantom Menace” and ending with “Revenge of the Sith.” While her role as Padme has become iconic and beloved, it wasn’t always that way. The lessons she learned from joining the “Star Wars” franchise would inform her career throughout the decades to come, for better or for worse.

While “The Phantom Menace” wasn’t Natalie Portman’s first film, the young star was still new to the industry when she first stepped into Padme’s shoes. She was only 18 when she was cast in “Star Wars: Episode 1” as Padme, winning the role due to her ability to balance Padme’s regality with vulnerability, a trait George Lucas found comparable to Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in the original trilogy. Despite the franchise’s indelible spot in the cultural lexicon, Portman had never seen the original films prior to getting cast as the future mother of Luke and Leia.

As a result, she was somewhat unaware of how big of a deal the films actually were, especially for a girl who was still in high school. She was even absent from the first film’s U.S. premiere to prioritize her final exams, but made up for it by showing up to her prom wearing the same dress she took to the U.K. premiere.

The young actress even admitted years later how overwhelmed she was by the “Star Wars” spectacle as a teen, telling CNN, “It’s really different from being in other kinds of films. It’s huge. It’s everywhere you go.” She quickly learned that, whether as a teenager or an adult, the global fame of appearing in the most highly-anticipated “Star Wars” movie of all time was bound to change her life for good.

Being one of the most famous teenage actors on the planet didn’t stop Natalie Portman from trying to experience a relatively normal young adulthood. After graduating from high school the same year “The Phantom Menace” premiered, Portman didn’t wait long to pursue a higher education, enrolling in Harvard University a year later. During her summers off, she continued starring in films like “Anywhere But Here,” and appeared in a Broadway production of Chekov’s “The Seagull” with Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

One might think attending an Ivy League school while juggling a rising acting career might be ideal, but Portman worked hard to shake off assumptions. As she told Vanity Fair, “I felt like I had to prove myself more [at Harvard] … I felt that people always thought I was there because I was famous and not because I deserved to be there.” She certainly valued her time at school in spite of her rising stardom, notably telling the press that she’d rather give up her career than drop out of college.

“Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones” was released in 2002, with Portman reprising her role as Padme. The film’s production primarily took place during Portman’s summer off from Harvard in 2000, with Portman telling the BBC, “It is definitely a big commitment to make … But it has been an incredible part of my life.”

“Star Wars” wasn’t the only acting job Natalie Portman had during her time at Harvard. The actress kept busy with numerous film projects, most of which had far lower budgets than those of that galaxy far, far away. In 2004, she signed onto Zach Braff’s directorial debut, “Garden State,” as Sam, a quirky girl who enchants the life of a depressed loner (Braff) returning home for his mother’s funeral. According to Portman, she was enthusiastic about joining “Garden State” for the opportunity to do something quite different from her experience on the special effects-heavy “Star Wars” sets.

2004 also saw Portman nab her first Oscar nomination (and Golden Globe win) for Mike Nichols’ “Closer,” as a stripper who falls for a writer played by Jude Law. The role garnered Portman acclaim and was a huge step forward for the actress: the film was much more adult than the family-friendly “Star Wars” franchise, plus Portman had to perform nude in deleted scenes. However, the media narrative that “Closer” was Portman’s breakthrough role said a lot about how the prequel films were seen by the industry at the time. Portman told The Guardian, “People say this is my introduction to adult roles — it sounds so funny, as if I am a porn star or something.”

Some filmmakers who saw Natalie Portman in the “Star Wars” movies were entranced enough by her performance to want to hire her. “V for Vendetta,” based on Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s comic, was one of the actress’ most notable roles of the 2000s outside “Star Wars.” She played Evey Hammond, a woman lured into a futuristic revolution led by the masked terrorist “V” against a dystopian British government.

Portman likely wouldn’t have been cast in the film if she hadn’t already met the director thanks to “Star Wars.” Before making his directorial debut with “V for Vendetta,” James McTeigue worked as an assistant director on “Attack of the Clones.” That’s where he first considered the talented Portman to portray the complex Evey, saying (via Warner Bros), “She’s completely professional, and looks luminous … more than anything, her fearlessness and intelligence were perfect for the role.”

Fortunately, McTeigue’s instincts on the set of “Star Wars: Episode II” were right, as Portman sacrificed a lot for the role of Evey. In one scene in “V for Vendetta,” the character is tortured and her head shaved, which Portman wanted really done on camera in order to feel the humiliation that the character feels. Not only was it brave, but Portman later showed up to the premiere of “Revenge of the Sith” still sporting her shaved head.

It’s no secret that, upon their initial release, the “Star Wars” prequels weren’t the cult classics they are today. The backlash to “The Phantom Menace” in particular was overwhelming at the time, having grave effects on the mental health of stars like Ahmed Best, who played Jar Jar Binks, and Jake Lloyd, who played Anakin Skywalker. While Natalie Portman’s career continued on after the prequels, she did admit that the critical backlash got to her as well.

Luckily, the “Star Wars” prequels wouldn’t be the last time she dealt with bad reviews, as she also encountered it for her second Marvel Cinematic Universe outing, “Thor: The Dark World.” “I mean, I had it with [‘Leon: The Professional’] too,” she told Variety. “That and ‘Star Wars’ are two examples of things that when they came out, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is a disaster.’ And then 20 years later … it’s beloved.”

Not only have many fans actually come around on the Portman-led “Star Wars” films, but a surprising percentage of “Star Wars” fans think the prequels are the best of the three trilogies. However, it doesn’t change the fact that, at the time, it was disappointing for her to be part of something so highly anticipated that ended up letting people down. Thankfully, it taught her the value of delayed gratification.

Although there’s much more love for the “Star Wars” prequels now than when they first came out, it was tough for Natalie Portman to pursue a serious career in movies while also carrying the burden of being in the “Star Wars” movie most fans would cut from the franchise. Although her early roles showed promise for the actress, poor direction and bad timing with the prequels turned off many directors from wanting to hire her, forcing Portman to rely on the people she already knew.

Portman recounted to New York magazine that one of the most helpful people during this time of her career was Mike Nichols, who she had met initially when he directed her in “The Seagull” on Broadway. Luckily, that play gave Portman the opportunity to prove to audiences that she wasn’t the wooden actor she appeared to be in “Star Wars,” saying, “I was in the biggest-grossing movie of the decade, and no director wanted to work with me. Mike wrote a letter to Anthony Minghella and said, ‘Put her in [‘Cold Mountain’], I vouch for her.'”

By the time films like “Garden State” and “V for Vendetta” were released, Portman was able to rehabilitate her image as a serious actor. But still, accusations that she wasn’t talented would haunt her even after she won the Oscar for “Black Swan,” with many claiming she still didn’t deserve the acclaim she had earned.

Like many young actors, Natalie Portman got a chance to bask in her success by hosting “Saturday Night Live” to promote “V for Vendetta.” However, nobody could predict how well Portman would do as a first-time host of “SNL,” especially when she teamed up with Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer to became part of The Lonely Island’s journey to Internet stardom with “Natalie’s Rap.”