Natalie Portman has worked with a long list of directors in her career, from George Lucas to Darren Aronofsky. This helped the actor avoid being one director’s sole muse, which was a term that she had issues with.
Natalie Portman once named one of her only male mentors who wasn’t creepy towards her
Portman has had a few male mentors in her long film career. But the Oscar-winner once credited filmmaker Mike Nichols as one of the only mentors who didn’t convey any creepy tendencies. Portman worked with the filmmaker in the 2004 movie Closer, which she co-starred along with Julia Roberts. Years earlier, Portman also worked with Nichols on the play The Seagull.
The late filmmaker left an unforgettable impression on Portman with his guidance.
“I think he was a genuine feminist,” Portman once said in the book Mike Nichols: A Life (via People). “There was nothing, nothing, nothing there except him seeing you as a creative, interesting, talented human. It is the rarest, finest quality, and not many directors of his generation had it.”
Natalie Portman hated the idea of being a directors’ muse
The concept of a director having a muse wasn’t an uncommon one. Many considered Uma Thurman as Quentin Tarantino’s muse for their collaborations in Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill films. Tippie Hendren was known as Alfred Hitchcock’s muse, and Diane Keaton was Woody Allen’s after the pair developed a close relationship with each other.
The muse concept wasn’t just relegated to men and women, however. In more contemporary times, Leonardo DiCaprio is seen as Martin Scorsese’s muse as well for instance. However, Portman was one actor who tried to avoid being a filmmaker’s sole muse, as she found the idea a bit distasteful.
“I have a problem with museship,” she once told Marie Claire (via NBC Philadelphia). “I feel like throughout history, it’s been men vampiring on women’s specialness. And why do that for someone? Maybe it’s fear of intimacy or something!”
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Natalie Portman once explained how working with bad directors gave her the confidence to be a filmmaker
Portman has also sat in the director’s chair before herself, making her debut full feature with the film A Tale of Love and Darkness. The Star Wars star learned from several filmmakers she’d worked with over the years, which included the likes of Nichols and Terrence Malick.
“Nichols was my great friend and mentor. And he always really focused on story,” Portman said in an interview with 92NY. “He just always said, ‘Remind yourself what story you’re telling. Name the moments, name the beats of your story.’”
Portman’s Black Swan director Aronofsky also gave her important tips that she’d use when directing her own project.
But what also gave Portman motivation to pursue directing was her experiences with perhaps less capable filmmakers.
“I had some funny acting experiences — funny meaning not that great — after Black Swan,” she once said in an interview at TIFF (via Women and Hollywood). “After working with someone who’s sub-par, it at least gave me confidence. I might not be Darren [Aronofsky] or Mike [Nichols], but I can be at least as good as that person.”
Portman gained further confidence to direct when shooting her movie in Israel, where there were many female directors.
“The new crop of film directors [there] actually skews more female than male, and in general women in positions of power… are more common there,” she said.
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