Being famous certainly comes with its own unique set of challenges, and in this interview, Natalie Portman didn’t shy away from addressing this. After “The Professional,” Portman obviously continued acting, but she was so incredibly young that she had to find a way to protect herself from the world at large as her fame continued to grow. Still, in saying that she’s trying to “integrate” those parts of herself now that she’s no longer a child, she says she probably went a bit too far in “splitting” herself.
“I felt like it was not accepting that both were part of me, that there wasn’t a ‘real’ me and a ‘pretend’ me, and that they didn’t necessarily have different names,” Portman said, referencing the extreme lengths she went to when she was younger — including changing her last name depending on the situation. “And it’s not just two different versions, there are multitudes of ways other people see me, both public and private, and there are multitudes of ways I see myself.”
Luckily, it seems like Portman has gotten better and better at doing this as she’s gotten older — only an extremely self-aware person could have parodied herself as effectively as she did on “Saturday Night Live” with the Lonely Island. But there’s another factor that’s helped Portman remain protective while understanding her multitudes.
