Thanks to the help of another actress, Natalie Portman was able to achieve her goal and increase her star power (Photo by LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images)
Gaining prominence in Hollywood and forcing your decisions on the big studios isn’t possible for every star in the industry, let alone someone just starting out. However, Natalie Portmanat the beginning of his career in the 90s, where he thrilled us in his first steps with films like… Fire against fire by Michael Mann, Everyone says I love you by Woody Allen, Martians to attack! by Tim Burton or beautiful girl by Ted Demme, was a clear exception.
The actress was still a minor at the time She was unwilling to make an artistic decision that might compromise her integrity., and while her power was still limited in front of Hollywood, a movie and a sex scene she didn’t want to shoot made her stand before the all-powerful mecca of cinema so they would understand her vision. It wasn’t an easy task, however Thanks to the help of another actress, she was able to achieve her goal and increase her power as a star..
It happened during the production of Life changethe drama he starred in Susan Sarandon in 1999. It was an adaptation of an acclaimed novel by Mona Simpson in 1986, a story about a mother who leaves her second husband and moves with her teenage daughter to Beverly Hills, where she tries to turn her into a movie star while dreaming of studying on the East Coast.
It was a somewhat turbulent project that took many years in development. Since the novel’s publication, Disney has attempted to adapt it Meryl Streep as the protagonist, but remained in limbo after the actress prioritized Hollywood memories in the early 90s. Years later, 20th Century Fox revisited the idea, but when they began pre-production in 1998 and signed Sarandon and Portman, setbacks arose again.
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Portman, who was only 16 at the time, I wasn’t happy with the script. Basically because it forced her to film a sex scene with actor Corbin Allred, a not strange act in a story about a young girl, but one she was comfortable with since she was still a minor and at an early stage in her career , didn’t want to start filming a shot of these properties and exposing yourself to the world. For this reason, he asked those responsible for the title to delete the sequence. But they remained deaf.
At the time, Portman threatened to leave Change of Life, but rather than worry about losing the actress, the studio decided to look for new faces to play the character. Fortunately, Susan Sarandon defended her co-star. “Natalie was chosen for her intelligence and strength,” Sarandon said in a 1999 interview with EW. “I needed someone who I could use all my strength on and who could defend myself.” “When Natalie got into an argument, they talked about other people, but I told them I wouldn’t do it without them.”
With Sarandon also ready to leave, it seemed as if “Change of Life” would end up back in the drawer, but eventually reason prevailed. To prevent the film from sinking, it was decided to listen to Portman and take all of her wishes into account, including: Rewrite the sex scene to avoid explicit details and create an intimate and safe filming environment. “I loved the role,” Portman said, “but I just wasn’t ready for it.” I’m not the kind of person who would do anything for my art. “I never want to change a writer’s vision, but when they did it for me, it was a very nice feeling.”
Specific, The scene was limited to showing the characters in their underwear and indicating their passion with a simple hug.. Furthermore, there were many, as the film’s director, Wayne Wang, pointed out in the aforementioned interview with EW Discussions about how to approach shooting in underwear to avoid making Portman or anyone else uncomfortable or overexposed. “I think it’s better. “Natalie’s integrity actually forced the author to be a little more inventive,” Sarandon said of the changes.
Therefore, Natalie Portman gained enough power to change the course of a project and defend his artistic needs, quite an achievement in an industry as impressive as Hollywood and even more so in a time like the late 90s. And the fact is that even though the actress was a young woman just starting out, she was already showing ways to establish herself as one of the big stars of our time, and that just has to be seen in the same year that “Change “Of Life” was released in 1999 and, thanks to “Star Wars”, established itself as an icon admired by all, a saga that was soon joined by top projects that reached the top of the Mecca of cinema.
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