Natalie Portman’s journey into darkness

Natalie Portman has never been so glad to be done with a film, said Baz Bamigboye in the London Daily Mail. To portray a weight-obsessed ballerina in Black Swan, the 29-year-old actress had to do the reverse of what Robert De Niro did for Raging Bull, and drop to an emaciated 100 pounds. “I was barely eating,” Portman says. “I was working 16 hours a day. I like to go home and be myself, but with this one, I didn’t get the chance. It didn’t leave me.” The role transformed both her body and her psyche. “I had no shape, no boobs. All you saw was bone. I was like, ‘This looks gross.’”

She was no less haunted by the dark, depressive nature of the role, with her character struggling with hallucinations and encroaching madness. “There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die. It was the first time I understood how you could get so wrapped up in a role that it could sort of take you down. It was more difficult than anything I’ve ever experienced before.”

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