Natalie Portman (Hebrew: נטלי פורטמן), born Natalie Hershlag (Hebrew: נטלי הרשלג) on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel is a Golden Globe-winning, Academy Award-nominated Israeli-American actress.Portman was born in Jerusalem, Israel. Her father, Avner Hershlag, is an Israeli medical doctor specializing in the research and treatment of human fertility and reproduction (reproductive endocrinology). Her mother, Shelley Stevens, is a Jewish American homemaker who now works as her agent (she is an artist by hobby and not profession). Portman's father's family members are descendants of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Romania, while her mother's family members were Jewish immigrants from Austria and Russia; her paternal grandfather's parents died in Auschwitz and her Romanian-born great-grandmother was a spy for the British during World War II.
Portman's parents met at a Jewish student center at Ohio State University, where Portman's mother was selling tickets. Portman's father returned to Israel, but the two corresponded and were married when Portman's mother visited Israel a few years later. When Portman was three years old, her family moved from Israel to her mother's native United States, where her father pursued his medical training. The family lived in Washington, D.C. in 1984 (she attended the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School), and then Connecticut in 1988, before finally settling down in Syosset, New York in 1990.
Portman has said that although she "really love[s] the States... my heart's in Jerusalem. That's where I feel at home."Portman is an only child and very close to her parents, who are often seen with her at her film premieres; when Portman was young, her mother always accompanied her to filming locations.Portman started taking dancing lessons at the age of four. She performed in local troupes, and dreamed of dancing on Broadway. At the age of 12 Portman was discovered in a pizza parlor by an agent for Revlon, who offered her an opportunity to model. She asked to be introduced to acting talent scouts instead of modeling agents, however. Referring to her discovery in an interview with Blender Magazine, Portman says, "I was definitely different from the other kids. I was more ambitious, I knew what I liked and what I wanted, and I worked very hard. I was a very serious kid." . She then took "Portman", her grandmother's maiden name, as her professional stage surname.
As a child, Portman spent her school holidays attending theater camps. In 1993, Portman was cast in her first professional role, as an understudy for the off-Broadway musical Ruthless!.[citation needed] The following year, she auditioned for Luc Besson's film Léon (aka The Professional). She was initially turned down, but through further auditioning won the part. Soon after getting the part, she took Portman as her stage name in the interest of privacy (in the Director's Cut of the film found on DVD she is credited as Natalie Hershlag). In the film, Portman plays an orphaned girl who befriends a much older assassin. Léon opened on November 18, 1994, and marked her feature film debut at age 12. That same year she appeared in the short film Developing, which aired on television. Starting at age 13, Portman spent her school holidays attending upscale theater camps Stagedoor Manor and Usdan Camp, where she fell in love with acting, playing roles in camp productions such as the title character in Anne of Green Gables, Dream Laurey in Oklahoma!, and Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Portman has advocated for environmental causes from a young age, becoming a member of the environmental song and dance troupe at age twelve. She is a self-proclaimed "animal lover," and has been a vegetarian since she was eight years old.
Portman has spent some of her free time involved in causes such as the Democrats' 2004 U.S. presidential campaign and ending poverty. In 2004 and 2005 she traveled to Uganda, Guatemala, and Ecuador as the Ambassador of Hope for FINCA International, an organization that promotes micro-lending to help finance women-owned businesses in poor countries. In an interview conducted backstage at the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia and appearing on the PBS program Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria she discussed microfinance. Host Fareed Zakaria said that he was "generally wary of celebrities with fashionable causes", but included the segment with Portman because "she really knew her stuff".In the "Voices" segment of the April 29th, 2007 episode of the ABC Sunday Morning Program This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Portman discussed her work with FINCA and how it can benefit women and their children in third world countries.
Portman commented in an interview that "I'm much more like the product of a doctor than I am a Jew." On the concept of the afterlife, she comments "I don't believe in that. I believe this is it, and I believe it's the best way to live."
