Power Play: How Natalie Portman's Artistic Integrity Led to Success in Hollywood

2023-10-26 13:55:40

Thanks to the help of another actress, Natalie Portman was able to achieve her goal and see her star power rise (Photo by LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images)

Gaining relevance in Hollywood and imposing your decisions on the big studios is not something within the reach of all stars in the industry, much less one in the making. However, Natalie Portmanat the stellar start of his career in the ’90s where in his first steps he delighted us with films like Fire against fire de Michael Mann, Everyone says I love you the Woody Allen, Martians to attack! of Tim Burton o Beautiful Girls by Ted Demme, was a clear exception.

The actress, who at that time was still a minor teenager, She was not willing to make any artistic decision that could jeopardize her integrity., and although her power in front of Hollywood was still limited, a film and a sex scene that she refused to shoot made her stand before the all-powerful mecca of cinema so that they would understand her vision. It was not an easy task but, Thanks to the help of another actress, she was able to achieve her goal and see her power as a star rise..

It happened during the production of Life changethe drama in which he co-starred with Susan Sarandon in 1999. It was the adaptation of an acclaimed novel written by Mona Simpson in 1986, a story about a mother who abandons her second husband and moves with her teenage daughter to Beverly Hills, where she will try to turn her into a movie star while she dreams of going to study on the East Coast.

It was a somewhat turbulent project that was in development for many years. Since the publication of the novel, Disney tried to adapt it with Meryl Streep as the protagonist, but was left in limbo after the actress prioritized Hollywood Memories in the early ’90s. Years later, 20th Century Fox revived the idea, but when they began pre-production in 1998 and signed Sarandon and Portman, setbacks again appeared.

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Portman, who was only 16 at the time, I wasn’t comfortable with the script. Basically because it forced her to film a sex scene with the actor Corbin Allred, a not strange plot in a story about a teenage girl, but, being still a minor and being in an early stage of her career, she did not want to start filming a shot of these characteristics and expose yourself to the entire world. Therefore, she asked those responsible for the title to eliminate the sequence. But they turned a deaf ear.

That’s when Portman threatened to leave Life change, but, instead of worrying about the loss of the actress, the studio chose to start looking for new faces to take on the character. Fortunately, Susan Sarandon came out in defense of her co-star. “Natalie was chosen because of her intelligence and strength,” Sarandon said in an interview with EW in 1999. “I needed someone who I could use my full strength and who could defend himself. “When Natalie got into a fight, they talked about other people, but I told them I wouldn’t do it without her.”

With Sarandon also ready to leave, it seemed that Life change It would end up stored in a drawer again, but finally sanity prevailed. To prevent the film from going under, it was decided to listen to Portman and heed all of his requests, which included rewrite the sex scene to avoid explicit details and achieve an intimate and safe filming environment. “I loved the role,” Portman said, “but she just wasn’t ready for it. I’m not one of those people who would do anything for their art. “I never want to change a writer’s vision, but when they did it for me, it was a very nice feeling.”

Specific, The scene was limited to showing the characters in their underwear and hinting at their passion with a simple hug.. Furthermore, as the film’s director, Wayne Wang, pointed out in the aforementioned interview with EWthere were many discussions about how to approach shots in their underwear to prevent Portman or anyone else from feeling uncomfortable or overexposed. “I think it’s better. Natalie’s integrity actually forced the writer to be a little more inventive,” Sarandon said of the changes.

Thus, Natalie Portman acquired enough power to change the course of a project and be able to defend his artistic needs, quite an achievement in an industry as impressive as Hollywood and even more so in a time like the end of the ’90s. And the fact is that the actress, even though she was a young woman who had just started, was already pointing out ways to establish herself as one of the great stars of our times, and you just have to see that the same year in which Life change hit theaters in 1999, it established itself as an icon admired by all thanks to Star Warsa saga that would soon be joined by top-level projects that reached the ceiling of the cinema mecca.