Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman was discovered - yes, this actually happened - two years ago in a Long Island pizza parlor. "I was with my family," the 14-year-old Portman recalls, "and this man from Revlon walked up and asked if I'd ever modeled." A part in an advertising campaign fell through, but she quickly picked up both a talent agent and a plum film role. In Luc Besson's "The Professional," Portman delivered a remarkable performance as a precocious girl who aspires to be an assassin after her family is wiped out in a brutal drug-ring hit. Portman's next movie part, in Ted Demme's forthcoming "Beautiful Girls," brings her a bit closer to home. "I play Timothy Hutton's next-door neighbor," she says. "And since my character is so much smarter than any of the women he knows, he asks me to wait 10 years for him, and then, maybe, we'll work out." Sounds like a sensible proposition.

 

---

Taken from "Interview" magazine.