Really nice find from Kitten, a comprehensive interview with Natalie from The Telegraph in the UK. There are some old quotes but quite a few new quotes as well. Below are just a few excerpts, starting with more clarification for those Natalie fans who assumed she had a better grasp of the French language than she does.

“I speak French, not well, but enough to get around and hopefully it will improve while I am there. I’m really excited. It’s everyone’s dream to get to live in Paris.”

Fulfilling another closely held dream,Portman is about to direct her first film, A Tale of Love and Darkness, based on the bestselling memoir by the Israeli author Amos Oz. She also wrote the screenplay. “It is his coming-of-age story set during the creation of the state of Israel.” She is renting a house in Tel Aviv with her family, doing research and pre-production on the project, when we speak by phone a few weeks after our chat in California.

The prospect of moving behind the camera, she says, is “exciting and scary. I think it’s kind of good not to be aware of how ill-equipped you are for the job you have ahead of you,” she says with a laugh, “or else you wouldn’t try anything. You have to be a bit delusional to try anything creative really, to not understand how high the mountain is before you start climbing it.”