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Natalie Portman shares her own survivor’s story through her decades-long career in Hollywood, admitting to feeling sexualized as a child star. The 43-year-old, who made her big screen debut in the R-rated 1994 film Léon: The Professional at the age of twelve, has been candid about the struggles of growing up in showbiz and spending her teenage years in the industry. In a 2018 interview, the actress admitted that becoming a child star forced her to realize too early, even as a thirteen-year-old, that expressing herself sexually would make men feel entitled to objectify her body, ultimately making her feel unsafe and uncomfortable.
Hence, she adopted a protective mechanism of covering her body completely, limiting her expression to send her message to the world. Sadly, even that did not keep the former child star from the dark reality of Hollywood.
Natalie Portman Felt Scared While Feeling Sexualized as a Child Star
In a new sit-down with Jenna Ortega, Natalie Portman once again discussed braving the journey as a child star, constantly being sexualized. During the conversation, Portman discussed how the public’s understanding of the woman she’s grown up to become is quite different from who she really is. She continued,
“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 onscreen. I felt very scared by it. Obviously sexuality is a huge part of being a kid, but I wanted it to be inside of me, not directed towards me.”
How Portman Protected Herself as a Kid in Showbiz
To protect herself from feeling sexualized, Natalie Portman admitted she resorted to portraying herself as so serious, studious, smart, and “not the kind of girl you attack.” The actress believed creating that image of herself would keep people away, and it worked for her at the time. Elsewhere in the interview, the 43-year-old admitted to going through phases in her career and learning what to avoid with each experience. She divulged,
“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.’ Obviously there was a long Lolita phase. Then there was the long ‘chick who helps the guy realize his emotional thing’ phase for about a decade.”
Natalie Portman’s Lolita reference was a nod to the 1955 novel about a male literature professor obsessed with a 12-year-old girl, Dolores Haze, bordering on the subject of pedophilia. Making her big screen debut at 12, Portman’s reference couldn’t have struck deeper. Interestingly, Jenna Ortega, who began her career at the age of nine, shared similar sentiments. She admitted that her experience as a child star has her feeling some form of kinship with other stars who delved into showbiz at a young age. She explained,
“As soon as someone mentions that they were a young actor, you start to look at them differently.”
Regardless, Ortega admitted to her The Gallerist co-star that some generation disparity did exist between the treatment of child stars then and now. She acknowledged that while it felt heartwarming to hear the experiences of former child actors from the previous generation, some of these stories felt “simultaneously devastating.” She admitted how grateful she felt knowing “how much it’s changed,” noting she’d been fortunate in their line of work so far.
Portman and Ortega Spark Conversation About the Struggles of Child Stars
The experiences of these two child actresses highlight the dark side of navigating life as a young female in Hollywood, a subject often underdiscussed. Stars like Natalie Portman have taken to kicking against this menace, referencing their experiences in various interviews. Her latest revelations left many fans eager to cast more light on the subject, potentially protecting future child stars from perpetual scars. Debate around the society’s fetishization of underage girls quickly popped up, with various fans expressing how it’s contributed to the Hollywood menace, ultimately threatening the safety of young girls. One Reddit user expressed,
“She was sexualized since she was a child, and it’s good we are starting to have this discussion, but we should have had it years ago.”
Another wrote,
“Natalie Portman, Brooke Shields, Shirley Temple. So many children weren’t protected in Hollywood, and the world did nothing.”
A third added,
“Alas, that’s the industry for you. Similar things happened to child stars like Justin Bieber or Millie Bobby Brown, with tons of adults being weird and sexual towards them.”
Netizens also recounted their “uncomfortable” experiences watching Natalie Portman in movie roles as a child star, especially in projects like Beautiful Girls and Leon: The Professional. Refering to the latter, one user wrote,
“I watched it when I was like 13 or 14. I’m a guy who is about the same age as Natalie, and it made me super uncomfortable then. Beautiful Girls too, I think she basically tells Timothy Hutton that she’ll be 18 in a few years and they can date then, which is super icky. The fetishization of underage girls in movies like that is so fucked up.”
Another emphasized,
“Beautiful Girls only solidified and proved everything she’s saying. Men look at young girls like they can raise them into their eventual girlfriends, and in the case of that role, they even had Portman emphasize that she’d be “hot” one day if he waited for her. There was a lot true in that movie. And a lot was very twisted about how men see women and girls.”
Various fans stressed the need to have conversations about the inappropriate treatment child stars endure and how to protect them. Calls to “protect child stars” also flooded the platform as netizens jointly called on the industry to do more to ensure a safer working environment for minors in Hollywood.
Despite the traumatic experience she endured growing up in Hollywood, Natalie Portman has evolved from the “scared” child star into a renowned actress using her voice to foster an environment that protects the next generation of young actors, while highlighting other issues. The mom of two stars alongside fellow one-time child star Jenna Ortega in the upcoming American thriller titled The Gallerist. The movie follows a desperate gallerist who conspires to sell a dead guy at Miami’s Art Basel. Boasting a star-studded cast, the film eyes a 2026 release date, but its intriguing storyline already has fans sold.
