Do we like Natalie Portman?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Years of speaking up for women and the environment, no harmful words found, with one Israel-related position that splits opinion.
Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem, and Hollywood knows her best as the kid from Léon, which launched her career at about 13. She went on to Star Wars, Closer (a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination) and Black Swan, and these days she also produces and directs.
The Léon chapter has a sour side that she has talked about openly. In 2023 she said the film gave her her career but has “cringey, to say the least, aspects to it”, and called the allegations against its director “devastating”. In 2018 she also described a teenage experience of being sexualised by the press and public, in a Women's March speech.
The messier scrap was with Moby. His 2019 memoir claimed they dated when she was 20. She said they “hung out a handful of times” and remembered “a much older man being creepy with me”. It is her account against his, and she was blunt that using it to sell a book was upsetting for her.
On harm, the search came up clean. We found no anti-LGBTQ+ or anti-women words from her, and she has put her face to the opposite. She wore a “Make America Gay Again” hat to the 2018 Women's March in LA, and at the Golden Globes that year she called Best Director “the all male nominees” on stage. We found no troubling company either, though the record on this is thin.
Israel is the one contested part. In 2018 she skipped a prize ceremony in Israel, saying she did not want to appear to endorse Netanyahu, while also saying she does not support BDS. In 2026 she signed the letter against boycotting Lapid, who is critical of his government. Whether you read that as principled or as one-sided depends on where you already stand.
Her 2026 Sundance moment was louder: she wore ICE Out and Be Good pins and said the festival's celebrations sat alongside grief. She also called out the Academy for overlooking films by women. The vegan, environmental side is old news too, since the Environmental Media Association gave her its Ongoing Commitment Award in 2017.