Age, Biography, and Wiki
Natalie Portman was born as Neta-Lee Hershlag in Jerusalem, Israel, to a Jewish family. Her father, Avner Hershlag, is a gynecologist, and her mother, Shelley, manages her career. The family moved to the United States when Natalie was young, settling in Long Island. She began her acting career at the age of 12 with the film "Léon: The Professional" (1994).
| Occupation | Film Producer |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 9 June 1981 |
| Age | 44 Years |
| Birth Place | West Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Israel |
| Horoscope | Gemini |
| Country | Israel |
Height, Weight & Measurements
- Height: 5 feet 3 inches (160 cm)
- Weight: Approximately 55 kg (121 lbs)
- Natalie Portman's measurements are not widely documented, but she is known for her slender physique.
| Height | 5 feet 3 inches |
| Weight | 121 lbs |
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Dating & Relationship Status
Natalie Portman is married to Benjamin Millepied, a French dancer and choreographer, whom she met during the production of "Black Swan" in 2009. They have two children together.
She is the only child of Shelley Stevens, an Ohio-born artist, and Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born gynecologist. Her mother’s ancestors immigrated from Austria and Russia to the U.S., while her father’s parents immigrated to Israel from Poland after World War II. Portman is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States.
Six months after Ruthless! ended, Hershlag auditioned for and secured a leading role in Luc Besson's action drama Léon: The Professional (1994). She adopted her paternal grandmother's maiden name, Portman, as her stage name. She played Mathilda, an orphan child who befriends a middle-aged hitman (played by Jean Reno). Her parents were reluctant to let her do the part due to the explicit sexual and violent nature of the script, but agreed after Besson took out the Mathilda character's nudity and killings that she committed. Portman herself said that after those scenes were removed, she found nothing objectionable about the content. Even so, her mother was displeased with some of the "sexual twists and turns" in the finished film, which were not part of the script. Hal Hinson of The Washington Post commended Portman for bringing a "genuine sense of tragedy" to her part, but Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times believed that she wasn't "enough of an actress to unfold Mathilda's pain" and criticized Besson's sexualization of her character.
After filming The Professional, Portman went back to school and during the summer break of 1994, she filmed a part in Marya Cohn's short film Developing. In it she played a young girl coping with her mother's (played by Frances Conroy) cancer. She also enrolled at the Stagedoor Manor performing arts camp, where she played Anne Shirley in a staging of Anne of Green Gables. Michael Mann offered her the small part of the suicidal stepdaughter of Al Pacino's character in the action film Heat (1995) for her ability to portray dysfunction without hysteria. Impressed by her performance in The Professional, the director Ted Demme cast her as a precocious teenager who flirts with her much-older neighbor (played by Timothy Hutton) in the ensemble comedy-drama Beautiful Girls (1996). Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "Portman, a budding knockout, is scene-stealingly good even in an overly showy role." She subsequently went back to Stagedoor Manor to appear in a production of the musical Cabaret. Also in 1996, Portman had brief roles in Woody Allen's musical Everyone Says I Love You and Tim Burton's comic science fiction film Mars Attacks!
Portman graduated from Syosset High School in 1999. Her high school paper, "A Simple Method to Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar", co-authored with scientists Ian Hurley and Jonathan Woodward, was entered in the Intel Science Talent Search. Following production on The Phantom Menace, Portman initially turned down a lead role in the coming-of-age film Anywhere but Here (1999) after learning it would involve a sex scene, but the director Wayne Wang and actress Susan Sarandon (who played Portman's mother in the film) demanded a rewrite of the script. She was shown a new draft, and decided to accept the part. Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon called Portman's performance "astonishing" and added that "unlike any number of actresses her age, she's neither too maudlin nor too plucky". She received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for it.
Portman's sole screen appearance in 2000 was in Where the Heart Is, a romantic drama filmed in Texas, in which she played a pregnant teenager. After finishing work on the film, she began attending Harvard University to pursue her bachelor's degree in psychology, and significantly reduced her acting roles over the next few years. She studied advanced Hebrew literature and neurobiology, and she served as Alan Dershowitz's research assistant. In the summer of 2001, she returned to Broadway (at the Delacorte Theater) to perform Chekhov's drama The Seagull, which was directed by Mike Nichols and co-starred Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Linda Winer of Newsday wrote that the "major surprises come from Portman, whose Nina transforms with astonishing lyricism from the girl with ambition to Chekhov's most difficult symbol of destruction". Also in 2001, Portman was among several celebrities who made cameo appearances in the comedy Zoolander. The following year she reprised her role of Amidala in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, which she had filmed in Sydney and London during her summer break of 2000. She was excited by the opportunity to play a confident young woman who did not depend on the male lead. When asked about balancing her career and education, she said, "I don't care if [college] ruins my career. I'd rather be smart than a movie star." In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal lobe activation during object permanence: data from near-infrared spectroscopy". Portman graduated from Harvard in 2003 and her sole screen appearance that year was in the brief part of a young mother in the war film Cold Mountain. She described this period as the "most difficult time" in her life, noting that she wasn't getting work and felt criticized for her performances in Star Wars. After taking time off, she begged for the Cold Mountain role, which Mike Nichols helped secure, offering her a letter of support that helped her regain confidence.
Portman next served as an executive producer for No Strings Attached (2011), a romantic comedy in which she starred with Ashton Kutcher as a young couple in a casual sex relationship. She described the experience of making it as a "palate cleanser" from the intensity of Black Swan. It received unfavorable reviews but was a commercial success. She next agreed to the film Your Highness for the opportunity of playing an athletic and foul-mouthed character, which she believed was rare for actresses. Critics were dismissive of the film's reliance on scatological humor and it proved to be a box-office bomb. In her final film release of 2011, Portman took on the part of Jane Foster, a scientist and love-interest of the titular character (played by Chris Hemsworth) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Thor. She liked the idea of Kenneth Branagh directing a big-budget film that emphasized character; she signed on to it before receiving a script, and helped develop her part by reading the biography of scientists such as Rosalind Franklin. Richard Kuipers of Variety commended Portman's "sterling work in a thinly written role" for adding dimension to the film's romantic subplot. Thor earned $449.3 million worldwide to emerge as the 15th highest-grossing film of 2011.
In 2015, Portman appeared alongside an ensemble cast, including Christian Bale, in Terrence Malick's experimental drama film Knight of Cups, which marked her first project after giving birth. She shot for it within a week of returning to work and she did not receive a traditional script or dialogues, improvising most of her scenes with Bale. She said that shooting with Malick influenced her own directorial venture, A Tale of Love and Darkness which was released in the same year. Based on Israeli author Amos Oz's autobiographical novel of the same name which is set in Jerusalem during the last years of the British Mandate of Palestine, the Hebrew-language film starred Portman who also produced and co-wrote it. She had wanted to adapt the book since she first read it a decade ago, but postponed it until she was old enough to play the leading role of a mother herself. She collaborated closely with Amos, showing him drafts of her script as she adapted the book. Portman stated that it was easier to be a female director in Israel than in the U.S., "thanks to the IDF". She explained that Israeli men are accustomed to female officers and commanders, "making it easier for them to accept female authority." Critics gave the film generally positive reviews. A. O. Scott of The New York Times found it to be a "conscientious adaptation of a difficult book" and was appreciative of Portman's potential as a filmmaker.
She next produced and starred in the western film Jane Got a Gun about a young mother seeking vengeance. Initially scheduled to be directed by Lynne Ramsay, the production was plagued with numerous difficulties. Ramsay did not turn up on set for the first day of filming and was eventually replaced with Gavin O'Connor. Michael Fassbender, Jude Law, and Bradley Cooper were all cast as the male lead, before Ewan McGregor played the part. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian reviewed that Portman's "stately performance" was not enough to save the "laborious and solemn western", and it grossed less than $4 million against its $25 million budget.
Portman portrayed Jacqueline Kennedy in the Pablo Larraín-directed biopic Jackie (2016), about Kennedy's life immediately after the 1963 assassination of her husband. She was initially intimidated to take on the part of a well-known public figure, and eventually researched Kennedy extensively by watching videos of her, reading books, and listening to audiotapes of her interviews. She also worked with a dialect coach to adopt Kennedy's unique speaking style. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter termed it an "incandescent performance" and added that "her Jackie is both inscrutable and naked, broken but unquestionably resilient, a mess and yet fiercely dignified". She won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also served as producer for the comedy horror film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, directed by Burr Steers, and starred in Rebecca Zlotowski's French-Belgian drama Planetarium. The 2017 experimental romance Song to Song marked Portman's second collaboration with Terrence Malick, which like their previous film polarized critics. That year, Portman revealed that she has experienced sexual harassment or discrimination in almost every project she has worked on, despite initially believing she had avoided such experiences.
In 2018, Portman starred in the science fiction film Annihilation, based on Jeff VanderMeer's novel. She played a biologist and former soldier who studies a mysterious quarantined zone of mutating organisms. She was pleased to headline a rare female-led science fiction film, and she moved her family near Pinewood Studios during filming. For the action sequences, she underwent movement training with the dancer Bobbi Jene Smith. Benjamin Lee of The Guardian took note of Portman's "strong, fiercely compelling presence" and commended her for playing the part without unnecessary sentimentality. It only received a limited theatrical release and was distributed on Netflix internationally. Her next appearance was in Xavier Dolan's first English-language film, the ensemble drama The Death & Life of John F. Donovan (2018), which was termed a "shocking misfire" by Eric Kohn of IndieWire. She then starred as a troubled pop singer in Vox Lux, sharing the part with Raffey Cassidy. She was drawn to the idea of showcasing the negative effects of fame, and in preparation, she watched documentaries on musicians and listened to the music of Sia, who wrote her songs in the film. For the climactic dance routines, she trained with her then-husband, Benjamin Millepied, who choreographed the sequence. It received mixed reviews from critics, but Portman's performance earned praise. Comparing it to her performances in Black Swan and Jackie, Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph wrote that "this role has a similar audacity and extravagance that few actresses would dare attempt, let alone be allowed to get away with".
Portman has long been an advocate for various causes, including animal rights, where she became a vegetarian at age eight after witnessing a demonstration of laser surgery on a chicken during a medical conference with her father. This experience deeply influenced her decision and has been a key part of her commitment to animal welfare. She became a vegan in 2009 after reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals and later produced a documentary on factory farming systems in the U.S. by the same title. In September 2017, she was recognized for her work on the film by the Environmental Media Association Awards with the Ongoing Commitment Award. She does not wear animal products and has praised animal-friendly products designed by Stella McCartney and Target. In 2007, she launched her own brand of animal-friendly footwear. In 2007, Portman traveled to Rwanda with Jack Hanna to film the documentary Gorillas on the Brink. Portman has been an advocate of environmental causes since childhood, when she joined an environmental song and dance troupe known as World Patrol Kids.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Benjamin Millepied (m. 2012-2024) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Natalie Portman's net worth is estimated to be around $90 million, according to most sources. Her net worth stems from her successful film career, brand endorsements (including a significant partnership with Dior), and real estate investments. She earns a minimum of $10 million annually from her Dior partnership alone.
Portman began filming the part of Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy in 1997, which marked her first big-budget production. The first film of the series, Episode I – The Phantom Menace was released in 1999, when she was in her senior year of high school. Portman was unfamiliar with the franchise when she was cast, and watched the original Star Wars trilogy before filming began. She worked closely with the director George Lucas on her character's accent and mannerisms, and watched the films of Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn, and Katharine Hepburn to draw inspiration from their voice and stature. Filming in arduous locations in Algeria proved challenging for Portman. She did not attend the film's premiere so she could study for her high school finals. The critical response to the film was mixed, but with earnings of $924 million worldwide it was the second highest-grossing film of all time to that point, and it established Portman as a global star.
Scarlett Johansson and Portman portrayed rival sisters Mary and Anne Boleyn, respectively, in the period film The Other Boleyn Girl (2008). She was excited by the opportunity to work opposite another actress her age, bemoaning that such casting was rare in film. Derek Elley of Variety was critical of Portman's English accent and wrote that she "doesn't quite bring the necessary heft to make Anne a truly dominant power player". The film had modest box-office earnings. She served as a jury member of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and also launched her own production company, named handsomecharlie films, after her late dog. Portman's directorial debut, the short film Eve, opened the short-film screenings at the 65th Venice International Film Festival. It is about a young woman who goes to her grandmother's romantic date, and Portman drew inspiration for the older character (played by Lauren Bacall) from her own grandmother.
In 2012, Portman topped Forbes' listing of the most bankable stars in Hollywood. Her sole screen appearance that year was in Paul McCartney's music video "My Valentine", alongside Johnny Depp. The following year, she reprised the role of Jane Foster in Thor: The Dark World, which earned over $644 million worldwide to emerge as the 10th highest-grossing film of 2013. Forbes featured her in their Celebrity 100 listing of 2014, and estimated her income from the previous year to be $13 million.
Career, Business, and Investments
Natalie Portman's career has been marked by iconic roles in films like "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace" (1999) and "Black Swan" (2010), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
- Film Career: She has appeared in a wide range of films, from blockbuster franchises to independent projects, showcasing her versatility as an actress.
- Producing and Directing: Portman has ventured into producing and directing, further diversifying her career.
- Brand Partnerships: Her partnership with Dior and other brands contributes significantly to her income.
- Real Estate: She has made several real estate investments, including properties in New York City and California.
- Literature: Portman has also ventured into children's literature, which could potentially add to her earnings.
Natalie Hershlag (born June 9, 1981), known professionally as Natalie Portman, is an Israeli-born American actress. She has had a prolific screen career from her teenage years and has starred in various blockbusters and independent films, receiving multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.
Her career gained further momentum in 2004 when she won a Golden Globe and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Closer. She then played Evey Hammond in V for Vendetta (2005), Anne Boleyn in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and a troubled ballerina in Black Swan (2010), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In the following years, Portman starred in the romantic comedy No Strings Attached (2011) and portrayed Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie (2016), which earned her a third Academy Award nomination. She also became a prominent figure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing Jane Foster in Thor (2011), Thor: The Dark World (2013), and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), which established her as one of the world's highest-paid actresses.
Portman and her producing partner, Sophie Mas, founded the production company MountainA in 2021, and signed a first-look television deal with Apple TV+. The company's first project was May December, a drama from filmmaker Todd Haynes, starring Portman and Julianne Moore, which premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Portman played an actress researching for her role as a woman (played by Moore) whose marriage to a much younger man was highly controversial. She was pleased to work with Haynes, whose work she admired, and to play a morally ambiguous character. Geoffrey Macnab of The Independent believed that the film had been "galvanised by the tremendous performances from Portman and Moore". Portman received another Golden Globe nomination for her performance. The company next produced the HBO documentary series Angel City, about the inaugural season of Angel City FC, which was co-founded by Portman.
Beyond her acting career, Portman has been a longtime ambassador for Dior. She signed with the brand in 2010 and has starred in multiple advertising campaigns. In March 2011, Portman began voluntarily promoting a fundraising campaign for Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. The campaign was aimed at raising funds for the construction of the Sarah Wetsman Davidson Tower, a new hospitalization tower at the hospital's Ein Kerem campus, which was open in 2012. The campaign was a joint effort with the Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of America, which owns the hospital. Later in October 2012, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority banned a Dior advertisement that featured Portman wearing Dior mascara after a complaint from Dior's competitor, L'Oreal, saying that the advert "misleadingly exaggerated the likely effects of the product". The ASA ruled that "the ad was likely to mislead". Portman is the face of one of the company's fragrances, Miss Dior, inspired by Catherine Dior. She has starred in campaign videos for the fragrance, and promoted a new version of the fragrance, Rose N'Roses, in 2021.
The statement did not specify which events, but was suggested as referencing the killings and wounding of Palestinian protestors by Israeli fire during the 2018–2019 Gaza border protests. Portman’s decision sparked backlash from Israeli politicians, including Culture Minister Miri Regev, Minister of Public Security and Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan and American rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who accused the actress of falling into the hands of the BDS movement. The Likud party condemned Portman’s position, with Knesset member Oren Hazan calling for her Israeli citizenship to be revoked.
Social Network
Natalie Portman is not very active on social media platforms, preferring to focus on her career and personal life rather than maintaining a strong online presence.
Portman has also directed the short film Eve (2008) and the biographical drama A Tale of Love and Darkness (2015), in which she also starred. In 2021, she co-founded the production company MountainA, under which she produced and starred in the film May December (2023) and the miniseries Lady in the Lake (2024). Portman is an advocate for various causes, including women’s rights, environmental issues, and animal welfare, supporting organizations like the Human Rights Foundation and the Jane Goodall Institute.
Portman instead signed on to star as Anne Frank in a Broadway revival of The Diary of Anne Frank, which was staged at the Music Box Theatre from December 1997 to May 1998. In preparation, she twice visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and interacted with Miep Gies, who had preserved Anne's diary after the family was captured; she found a connection with Frank's story, given her own family's history with the Holocaust. Reviewing the production for Variety, Greg Evans disliked her portrayal, which he thought had "little of the charm, budding genius or even brittle intelligence that the diary itself reveals". Conversely, Ben Brantley found an "ineffable grace in her awkwardness". The experience of performing the play was emotionally draining for her, as she attended high school during the day and performed at night; she wrote personal essays in Time and Seventeen magazines about her experience.
Portman began 2004 by featuring in the romantic comedy Garden State, which was written and directed by its star Zach Braff. She was the first actor to sign on to the film after finding a connection with her part: a spirited young girl suffering from epilepsy. Her role in it was described by Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club. as a prime example of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl character type – a stereotypical female role designed to spiritually help a male protagonist. Portman later said she found it upsetting to have contributed to the trope. She followed it by playing a mysterious stripper in Closer, a romantic drama directed by Mike Nichols based on the play of the same name, and co-starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, and Clive Owen. Portman agreed to her first sexually explicit adult role after turning down such parts in the past, saying it reflected her own maturity as a person. She had also performed her first nude scenes for the film, but they were deleted from the final cut when she insisted that they were inessential to the story. Closer grossed over $115 million worldwide against a $27 million budget, and the critic Peter Travers took note of Portman's "blazing, breakthrough performance", writing that she "digs so deep into the bruised core of her character that they seem to wear the same skin." She won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and received an Academy Award nomination in the same category.
Portman is a supporter of the Democratic Party, and for the 2004 presidential election she campaigned for Senator John Kerry. Prior to the 2008 presidential election, she supported Senator Hillary Clinton of New York in the Democratic primaries. Portman later campaigned for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. In a 2008 interview, she also stated: "I even like John McCain. I disagree with his war stance – which is a really big deal – but I think he's a very moral person." In 2010, her activist work and popularity with young people earned her a nomination for VH1's Do Something Awards, which is dedicated to honoring individuals who do good. In 2011, Portman and her then-fiancé Benjamin Millepied were among the signers of a petition to President Obama in support of same-sex marriage. She supported Obama's re-election campaign in 2012.
Portman has described her feelings about Israel as complex, "like family—you love it more than anything else in the world and you also are more critical of it than anything else in the world."
Portman clarified that she was not boycotting Israel, stating, "I am not part of the BDS movement and do not endorse it. Like many Israelis and Jews, I can be critical of Israel's leadership without wanting to boycott the nation." She explained that she did not want to "appear as endorsing" Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was scheduled to speak at the ceremony, and emphasized that "the mistreatment of those suffering from today’s atrocities is not in line with my Jewish values." She added, "Because I care about Israel, I must stand up against violence, corruption, inequality, and abuse of power". Later in 2018, Portman criticized the passing of the highly controversial and widely criticized Nation-State Bill, describing the law as "racist, and there’s nothing else to say about that." She is also a member of the One Voice movement.
On October 18, 2023, Portman called for the release of hostages held by Hamas and condemned their actions. She also advocated for Israeli children who have been kidnapped, urging support for their release. Additionally, she publicized information about Dror Israel on Instagram to raise funds for children near the Gaza border and called on the Red Cross to address ongoing breaches of International Humanitarian Law within Israel. On November 12, 2023, she took part in the March for the Republic and Against Antisemitism in Paris in response to the rise in antisemitism since the start of the Gaza war.
Portman is a polyglot, and speaks English, Hebrew, French, German, Japanese and Arabic, to various degrees. In 2005, Portman bought an apartment in Richard Meier's glass tower at West Village for $5.7 million. In 2008, she listed it for sale at $6.55 million. In 2006, Portman expressed a strong connection to her Jewish identity, particularly in Israel, and shared her desire to raise her children Jewish: "A priority for me is definitely that I'd like to raise my kids Jewish, but the ultimate thing is to have someone who is a good person and who is a partner." Portman has discreetly dated actors Zach Braff, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Devendra Banhart. She married French dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied, with whom she shares two children. The couple met in 2009 while working together on Black Swan, and wed on August 4, 2012, in a Jewish ceremony in Big Sur, California.
Education
Natalie Portman attended Syosset High School in New York and later enrolled at Harvard University, where she graduated with a degree in psychology in 2003. Her education reflects her commitment to both her acting career and academic pursuits.
While still in high school, she made her Broadway debut in The Diary of a Young Girl (1998) and gained international recognition for her role as Padmé Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999). From 1999 to 2003, Portman attended Harvard University, earning a bachelor's degree in psychology. During this time, she took fewer acting roles but continued to appear in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (2002 and 2005) and performed in a 2001 revival of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull at The Public Theater.
Portman and her family moved to the United States in 1984, first living in Washington, D.C., but relocating to Connecticut in 1988 and then to Long Island in 1990. While living in Washington, Portman attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Maryland. Her native language is Hebrew. While living on Long Island, she attended a Jewish elementary school, the Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County. She studied ballet and modern dance at the American Theater Dance Workshop, and regularly attended the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. Describing her early life, Portman has said that she was "different from the other kids. I was more ambitious. I knew what I liked and what I wanted, and I worked very hard. I was a very serious kid."
When Portman was ten years old, a Revlon agent spotted her at a pizza restaurant and asked her to become a child model. She turned down the offer but used the opportunity to get an acting agent. She auditioned for the 1992 off-Broadway Ruthless!, a musical about a girl who is prepared to commit murder to get the lead in a school play. Portman and Britney Spears were chosen as understudies for star Laura Bell Bundy.
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, the final installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, was Portman's first film release of 2005. It earned over $848 million to rank as the second-highest-grossing film of the year. She next played a Jewish-American girl in Free Zone, a drama from Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai. To prepare, she studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and read memoirs of Yitzhak Rabin, which she said allowed her to explore both the role and her own heritage. Controversy arose when she filmed a kissing scene at the Western Wall, where gender segregation is enforced, and she later issued an apology. Critics disliked the film for its heavy-handed approach to the conflicts in the Middle East. Portman's final film role in 2005 was that of Evey Hammond in the political thriller V for Vendetta, based on the comics of the same name, about an alternative future where a neo-fascist regime has subjugated the United Kingdom. She was drawn to the provocative nature of the script, and worked with a dialect coach to speak in an English accent. In a scene in which her character is tortured, her head was shaved on camera; she considered it an opportunity to rid herself of vanity. Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle deemed it Portman's strongest performance to that point, and remarked that she "keeps you focused on her words and actions instead of her bald head." She was awarded the Saturn Award for Best Actress.
Portman has also supported anti-poverty causes. In 2004 and 2005, she traveled to Uganda, Guatemala, and Ecuador as the Ambassador of Hope for FINCA International, an organization that promotes micro-lending to help finance women-owned businesses in developing countries. In an interview appearing on the PBS program Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria, she discussed microfinance. Host Fareed Zakaria said that he was "generally wary of celebrities with fashionable causes", but included the segment with Portman because "she really knew her stuff". On This Week with George Stephanopoulos in April 2007, Portman discussed her work with FINCA and how it can benefit women and children in Third World countries. In fall-2007, she visited several university campuses, including Harvard, USC, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton, New York University, and Columbia, to inspire students with the power of microfinance and to encourage them to join the Village Banking Campaign to help families and communities lift themselves out of poverty.
In January 2011, Portman was appointed an ambassador of WE Charity (formerly known as Free The Children), an international charity and educational partner, spearheading their Power of a Girl campaign. She hosted a contest challenging girls in North America to fundraise for one of WE Charity's all-girl schools in Kenya. As incentives for the contest winner, Portman offered the designer Rodarte dress she wore to the premiere of Black Swan, along with tickets to her next film premiere. It was announced in May 2012 that Portman would be working with watch designer Richard Mille to develop a limited-edition timepiece with proceeds supporting WE Charity. During WE Day California 2019 Portman gave a pro vegan speech in front of the student audience, linking vegan lifestyle and feminism. In December 2019, she visited Kenya a second time with WE Charity and spoke with young girls determined to improve their lives through access to education.
In 2006, Portman served as a guest lecturer at Columbia University for a course in terrorism and counterterrorism, where she spoke about her film V for Vendetta. In February 2015, Portman was among other alumni of Harvard University including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Darren Aronofsky and Susan Faludi who wrote an open letter to the school demanding it divest its $35,900,000,000 endowment from coal, gas, and oil companies. Later that year in May, she spoke at the annual Harvard Class Day to the graduating class of 2015.
