From the AV Club comes this “19 child actors who went on to successful, respectable careers” list. Natalie makes an appearance at #18.

The same could be said of Natalie Portman, though she contains such multitudes that a simple dichotomy doesn’t work. Is she the threatened little girl from Luc Besson’s The Professional? (It was her feature debut; she was 12.) The remote, heavily costumed princess-slash-action-heroine of The Phantom Menace and its sequels? The sexy, slightly trampy, ignorant but determined power-player in Closer? The irritating Manic Pixie Dream Girl of Garden State? The abused victim of V For Vendetta and Goya’s Ghosts? The domineering bitch-queen of The Other Boleyn Girl? Does her starring role in Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium explain anything? Portman is another actor who effectively grew up onscreen, but even watching her develop up close year after year since her childhood hasn’t made it any easier to predict how good she’ll be in a given role, or how good the film around her will be. Still, she’s usually an arresting presence, if she gets material worth working with.