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Natalie Portman has broken her silence on being sexualized as a child star in Hollywood.
The “Black Swan” actress, who was only 12 years old when she made her big screen acting debut in the R-rated film “Léon: The Professional” in 1994, opened up about her shocking experience in a conversation with Jenna Ortega for Interview magazine published on Tuesday.
“I think there’s a public understanding of me that’s different from who I am,” Portman, 43, explained. “I’ve talked about it a little before – about how, as a kid, I was really sexualized, which I think happens to a lot of young girls who are on-screen.”
“I felt very scared by it,” she continued. “Obviously sexuality is a huge part of being a kid, but I wanted it to be inside of me, not directed towards me.”
While the “May December” star admitted that she was “really sexualized” as a young actress in the industry, she also explained how she was able to “protect” herself by acting “serious” and “smart.”
“I’m so studious. I’m smart, and that’s not the kind of girl you attack,” Portman said. “I was like, if I create this image of myself, I’ll be left alone. It shouldn’t be a thing, but it worked.”
As for Ortega, who stars opposite Portman in the upcoming film “The Gallerist,” she revealed that her experience as a young star in Hollywood has been “so jarringly different” from Portman and other former child actors.
“As soon as someone mentions that they were a young actor, you start to look at them differently,” Ortega, 22, said. “There’s something really, really heartwarming but also simultaneously devastating anytime I speak to actresses from previous generations, just because their experience is so jarringly different.”
“It’s nice to see how much it’s changed because I’ve been very fortunate in my upbringing, in our line of work,” the “Wednesday” actress added.
Later in their conversation, Portman described the “phases” her acting career went through as she aged.
“There are definitely tropes, and I think at each phase in my career, there was a different one that I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve got to avoid this,’” the “Star Wars” actress shared.
“Obviously there was a long ‘Lolita’ phase,” she added. “Then there was the long ‘chick who helps the guy realize his emotional thing’ phase for about a decade.”
The Marvel star’s remarks about being sexualized as a child in Hollywood echo similar comments Portman made in 2018 during an interview with People.
“I understood very quickly, even as a 13-year-old, that if I were to express myself sexually, I would feel unsafe and that men would feel entitled to discuss and objectify my body to my great discomfort,” she said at the time.
“I felt the need to cover my body and to inhibit my expression and my work in order to send my own message to the world that I’m someone worth of safety and respect,” Portman added.
The Oscar winner, who shares son Aleph, 13, and daughter Amalia, 8, with her ex-husband, Benjamin Millepied, also said that she would “not encourage young people to go into” acting during Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast in November 2023.
“I feel it was almost an accident of luck that I was not harmed,” Portman added during the podcast, “also combined with very overprotective, wonderful parents.”