{"id":70006,"date":"2020-12-08T01:58:43","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T01:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thefastfashion.com\/?p=70006"},"modified":"2020-12-08T01:58:43","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T01:58:43","slug":"natalie-portman-sexualized-child-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefastfashion.com\/?p=70006","title":{"rendered":"Natalie Portman: I was sexualized as child star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Natalie Portman never fell into the pitfalls many child stars experience in Hollywood, but her career trajectory came with its own set of challenges.<\/p>\n

The Oscar-winning actress appeared on\u00a0Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard,\u00a0and talked about being sexualized at a young age. Portman, now 39, broke out at age 12 in\u00a0L\u00e9on: The Professional\u00a0and starred in\u00a0Beautiful Girls\u00a0two years later. She opened up about the effects of being portrayed as a \u201cLolita figure\u201d in the press early on and the coping mechanism she used to combat it.<\/p>\n

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Shepard, who is six years older than the actress, explained on his podcast how he loved Portman growing up, but that he has some complicated feelings about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe premise of\u00a0Beautiful Girls\u00a0is [actor] Timothy Hutton gets infected with this cute girl who\u2019s precocious and wiser than her years and there\u2019s something whimsical about it,\u201d Shepard recalled. \u201cThere\u2019s some pretty things, and there\u2019s some complicated, dicey things, and now I don\u2019t know that movie gets made. There\u2019s so many layers to it\u2026 there were times I was like \u2018I shouldn\u2019t be so in love with this girl, but Timothy Hutton is.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a new concept for Portman.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was definitely aware of the fact that I was being portrayed \u2014 mainly in kind of journalism around when the movies would come out \u2014 as this Lolita figure and stuff,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n

The actress, who is releasing a children\u2019s book of gender inclusive fables, has previously touched on the consequences of being a female child actor.\u00a0In a stirring speech\u00a0at the 2018 Women\u2019s March, she said the first fan mail she received after\u00a0The Professional\u00a0was a rape fantasy a man wrote her.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cBeing sexualized as a child, I think, took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid,\u201d Portman told Shepard. \u201cIt made me feel like the way I can be safe is to be like, \u2018I\u2019m conservative, and I\u2019m serious, and you should respect me, and I\u2019m smart and don\u2019t look at me that way.\u2019 Whereas, like, that age \u2014 you do have your own sexuality, and you do have your own desire, and you do want to explore things, and you do want to be open, but you don\u2019t feel safe, necessarily, when there\u2019s, like, older men that are interested and you\u2019re like \u2019No, no no no no no.\u201d<\/p>\n

Portman said she built \u201cfortresses\u201d around her to \u201cfeel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many people I think had this impression of me that I was, like, super serious, and prude and conservative,\u201d she continued. \u201cI realize I consciously cultivated that because it was ways to make me feel safe. \u2018Oh, if someone respects you they\u2019re not going to objectify you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt worked out, luckily,\u201d the activist added. \u201cI mean, I was safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shepard noted how her career path was almost opposite of a Disney star who tries to reclaim their sexuality later on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s totally true and it\u2019s so weird because it\u2019s, like, I was auditioning for all that stuff too and I never got it as a kid. I always got the dark, kind of sexy, young girl role,\u201d Portman laughed, saying she\u2019d try to audition for a cereal commercial \u201cand they\u2019d be like, \u2018No way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Adv<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n