The petty controversy: In February, Natalie Portman took home the Best Actress Oscar for playing a taut, talented, psychologically tormented young ballerina in Black Swan. Much was made of Portman's pre-production training and dieting, and her preternatural ability to look, and dance, the part, after just a year and a half of instruction. The film's choreographer (and Portman's fiancé), Benjamin Millepied, who helped fuel that buzz, told the Los Angeles Times last week that Portman did 85 percent of the onscreen dancing, provoking Portman's dancing double, Sarah Lane, a soloist with the American Ballet Theatre, to speak out. She claims that Portman appeared in only about 5 percent of the full-body dance shots, and that she was told to keep quiet about it so that Portman would win the Oscar. "They wanted to create this idea in people's minds that Natalie was some kind of prodigy...," Lane tells Entertainment Weekly. But really, "she can't dance in pointe shoes... she can't move her body... she's very stiff," and it's "demeaning to the profession" to suggest she could become a ballerina in just 18 months.
The reaction: Someone should tell this jealous "Green Swan" dancer "that those aren't actually spaceships in Star Wars either," says Michael Seitzman in The Huffington Post. "Movie making is make-believe." There's only one way to sort out this "she-said, she-said mess," says Julie Ryan Evans at The Stir. "A good old-fashioned dance off!" Well, maybe this is just life imitating art, says Kyle Buchanan in New York. "In Black Swan, Natalie Portman is forever haunted by her double, and why shouldn't that continue into real life?"
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Today's political cartoons - March 30, 2025Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - strawberry fields forever, secret files, and more
-
5 hilariously sparse cartoons about further DOGE cutsCartoons Artists take on free audits, report cards, and more
-
Following the Tea Horse Road in ChinaThe Week Recommends This network of roads and trails served as vital trading routes
