Second-time mom-to-be Natalie Portman is buzzed to be a contender for another Best Actress Oscar Award based on her riveting performance in the upcoming drama Jackie, about John F. Kennedy’s First Lady.
Portman, who won an Academy Award for her haunting portrayal of a tortured professional ballerina in The Black Swan, attended the 54th New York Film Festival screening of the movie Alice Tully Hall in the Lincoln Center on October 13, 2016 in New York City.
She was glowing in a flowy navy tent dress accented with black pumps and a black box clutch that she posed in before the screening and a Q&A after the film.
The director for the film Pablo Larraín said he couldn’t see any other actress playing the role.
“It was a combination of elegance, sophistication, intelligence, and fragility. Beauty and sadness can be something very powerful in our culture,” Chilean filmmaker Larraín has said about the star who brought to life the post traumatic stress that Jackie Kennedy experienced during the four days following John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
According to a Vanity Fair feature, since the film’s debut, most critics have agreed with the man who manifested the collaboration, calling Portman’s performance riveting, astonishing, stunning, and deserving of awards. Since this first wave of rave reviews, the film has also garnered a prime, Oscar-qualifying release date of December 9, Vanity Fair notes, adding:
Portman’s preparation included working with a voice coach to perfect Kennedy’s mid-Atlantic, by way of Miss Porter’s finishing school, dialect. She also exhaustively researched—diving into anything and everything written about, recorded of, and filmed about Kennedy—discovering Kennedy’s great love of history and understanding that it was up to her, even when suffering through unspeakable personal tragedy, to cement her husband’s legacy. By the time Portman got to set, she was so immersed in the character that Larraín says a third of the movie was made with single takes—and he never needed more than five.
“I always felt like Natalie was giving so much . . . I could see how exhausting the emotional scenes were for her,” Larrain told the mag. “Once you feel you have it, you don’t have to keep digging. I’ve made movies where I’ve taken hundreds of shots if I need to—but here, she was giving so much.”
Bravo, Natalie! We’re rooting for her! Can’t wait to see the film!
