Natalie Portman
When directors want precocious, they turn to 15-year-old Natalie Portman. "She was camera-ready when she arrived," says Todd Thaler, casting director for "The Professional," which Portman starred in at age 12, playing a kid who falls for a middle-aged hit man. "They literally could have gone into production without a stitch of rehearsal." The straight-A, Long Island 10th grader, who adopted Portman as a stage name to retain her privacy, "is like a gift to mankind," says her friend, designer Isaac Mizrahi. This year she stands out among experienced ensemble casts in "Beautiful Girls" and Woody Allen's "Everyone Says I Love You." Next month she'll star in Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks!" and in the spring she'll begin filming "The Horse Whisperer" for director Robert Redford. But Portman turned down the lead in Adrian Lyne's "Lolita" because "she thought there were enough images of children exploited by adults," says Thaler. The daughter of an Israeli infertility specialist and his American artist wife knows the importance of keeping a level head. "I see these 20-year-old actors who do nothing but smoke cigarettes and go to clubs every night while they wait for their next part," she told Newsday, "and I couldn't stand living that way." Doesn't look like she'll have to. "In 10 years she's going to run the entire world," says "Beautiful Girls" director Ted Demme, "and I want to be one of her assistants."

 

---

Taken from "People" magazine.