Natalie Good
As if to dispel any doubt about her unnaturally advanced maturity, 14-year-old Natalie Portman interrupts her account of how she was discovered to say, "You probably read this story in some other magazine." Well, in case you haven't, the East Coast - raised starlet was noticed by a Revlon rep at a pizza parlor and, when asked if she wanted to model, exclaimed, "No, I want to act!" Her wish was fulfilled when a casting call landed her a lead in last year's "The Professional," and she acts some more as Al Pacino's step-daughter in "Heat" (this month) and as a heartbreaker-in-training in "Beautiful Girls" (January). Pacino, she says, "was unbelievable. I thought he'd be kind of cold because a lot of big stars stay separate, but he was so not like that." That more aloof big star Woody Allen, meanwhile, has cast Portman in his untitled fall project - he's so like that. But just what kind of career would she like anyway? "I just want to have fun!" she gushes. Good answer.

 

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Taken from "Vanity Fair".
By Michael Musto.