The internet finally caught up to Natalie’s beautiful piece in NY Mag and proceeding to ignore 95% of her quote to focus in on the Star Wars line. A prime example being The Independent’s headline of, “Natalie Portman blames Star Wars for nearly ruining her career.”

“Star Wars had come out around the time of Seagull, and everyone thought I was a horrible actress. I was in the biggest-grossing movie of the decade, and no director wanted to work with me”.

Thought #1 – It barely registered with me because it’s something she expressed before in the extensive Times Talks interview many years ago.
Thought #2 – She quite clearly does not “blame” Star Wars.
Thought #3 – Her struggle was, of course, due in part to her performance in, and the quality of, Star Wars. But the bigger problem was a 6 or 7 year stretch where she didn’t make many films, because of school and university, and those that she did do were mainly misses. Anywhere But Here is probably the only film you could argue was a decent performance and film.
Thought #4 – This is probably why we so seldom get to see Natalie open up to the media.