“He always plays such jerks,” Ms. Portman said. “I was like, ‘Oh God, what’s it going to be like to work with this guy?’ But he’s so incredibly lovely.”

She said she was grateful for a role that was athletic as well as comic, allowing her to wield fearsome weapons and foul language traditionally reserved for male characters.

“I don’t know how I got this image of being this strait-laced girl,” she said.

As for a scene in which Ms. Portman conspicuously strips down to a thong bikini before bathing in a lake, she said, “Now being heavily pregnant, I’m glad it’s captured on film somewhere that I wasn’t always this size.”

Natalie Portman shopped at Joan Shepp (1616 Walnut) Tuesday afternoon. The pregnant Oscar-winner is in town with fiance Benjamin Millepied, who choreographed her in “Black Swan,” and who is now working with the Pennsylvania Ballet on “Building on Balanchine,” which runs April 14 to 17 at the Merriam Theatre. Millepied previously worked with 14 PA Ballet dancers in “Black Swan.”

UPDATE: Portman, in a navy poncho and toting a little dog, stopped into Art in the Age (116 N. 3rd) this afternoon where she was looking at Utility Quilt throws. She and the pooch also popped into Hello Home (10th & Pine). The couple dined Tuesday at Zahav (237 St. James) and we’re told Portman is giving her man space as she has not turned up at any of the ballet company’s rehearsals at its East Falls studio. The couple are expected to commute back and forth to New York between now and the show debut