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By DP30 david@thehotbuttonl.com

Black Swan, actor Natalie Portman

SPOILER WARNING: We discuss the ultimate scenes in the film in this conversation.

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6 Responses to “Black Swan, actor Natalie Portman”

  1. Jessica says:

    Great interview with Miss Portman. She seems very thoughtful and lovely and oh so cute!

  2. Peter says:

    Since Lexg hasn’t commented yet, I will do the honors.

    LOOK AT HER!!!!!

    In all seriousness, she is wonderful in the movie. Actually, I really can’t think of a word(s) that can describe how good she is here. Performance of the year?

    Great interview.

  3. sanj says:

    this interview belongs on the dvd extras – you’ve got so many Black Swan interviews i figure all will be in the dvd?

    also saw Natalie on Dave Letterman – Natalie had 2 segments – the most interesting thing about that was Dave never mentioned any of the other actors / directors or any of the usual questions a movie like this gets.
    Dave thinks Natalie will win the Oscar …

  4. Bruce says:

    Just watched the interview, with Natalie. There seems to be intelligent life in planet Hollywood! She is well spoken, modest, and articulate. What a refreshig change from the usual.

  5. Margot Channing Tatum O'neal says:

    After seeing Black Swan and having concluded that (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!) Nina didn’t die, I had yet to find anyone who agreed with me.

    Nice to see you and the lovely Natalie Portman do.

    What an interesting film and what a great metaphor for womanhood. The Black Swan (woman) transformation is by far one of the most memorable scenes I’ve seen in film this year.

  6. amir says:

    sensytiv lovly girl

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon