Natalie Portman Says She Felt “Very Scared” Being Sexualized as a Child Actor

Natalie Portman has spoken in detail about the impact of being sexualized as a young performer, describing her early years in the film industry as defined by what she called a “long Lolita phase.” Speaking with Jenna Ortega in a feature for Interview magazine, Portman reflected on the image projected onto her following her debut in Léon: The Professional, filmed when she was just 12.

“There’s a public understanding of me that’s different from who I am,” Portman said. “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.”

She described building a persona to protect herself from attention she didn’t want. “I was like, if I create this image of myself, I’ll be left alone,” she said. “It shouldn’t be a thing, but it worked.” Portman added that her public image as serious and bookish was shaped by this response, even though she considers herself more open and informal in private.

Throughout her career, she said she encountered recurring character types she was expected to play, many of which she actively avoided. “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.”

In a previous appearance on the Smartless podcast, Portman shared that she learned to present a certain kind of seriousness on set as a self-protective measure. “It was almost a warning signal like, ‘Oh, don’t do shit to her,’” she said. “Not that anyone ever deserves it or is asking for it. But I felt like that was my unconscious way of doing it.”

Her parents played a significant role in keeping her safe during those years. “My mother was with me all the time and made sure that no one got near me,” she said. When she later began college at Harvard University, her father encouraged her to shift direction. “My dad was like, ‘Okay, that was cute. Time to move on. Let’s find another job — a real job.’”

Portman studied psychology but didn’t leave acting behind. During her teenage years, she appeared in a series of films including Beautiful Girls, Mars Attacks!, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Anywhere But Here, and Where the Heart Is.

After The Professional, she was approached to star in Adrian Lyne’s 1997 adaptation of Lolita, but declined. “I met with the director but I immediately told him there’s no way I’m gonna do this movie,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1996. “Kubrick’s film of the book is great because nothing is really shown, but this one will be explicit. He told me they’d use body doubles but I said people will still think it’s me, so no thank you.”

Portman and Ortega appear together in the upcoming film The Gallerist. Portman is also set to star opposite John Krasinski in Fountain of Youth, directed by Guy Ritchie, which premieres May 23 on Apple TV+.