In 1994, French director Luc Besson unveiled his latest movie: Léon:
The Professional. This action-thriller centers on the titular hitman, played by Jean Reno,
who ends up taking a young girl named Mathilda under his wing after her family is killed. The
actress who played Léon's protégée was none other than Natalie Portman, and her decision
to join the production at just 11 years old marked the beginning of her big-screen journey.
Portman's portrayal of Mathilda didn't go unnoticed, and with each subsequent role she took,
her stock in Hollywood grew dramatically higher. It was during the 2000s that she
really made waves, however, with movies such as V for Vendetta and Garden State.
The next decade kept her busy too, with projects including Black Swan, Thor, and Annihilation.
These days, Natalie Portman is a household name, having taken on several career-defining projects,
earned numerous awards, and used her platform to spread awareness on issues near and dear to her.
However, thanks to one now-beloved science-fiction blockbuster,
all of this success could very well have never come to fruition.
1999 was a huge year for Natalie Portman, seeing as it was the year she joined the
cast of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Portman starred as
Padmé Amidala: the queen of Naboo and an eventual key figure in the Galactic Senate,
as well as the future wife of Anakin Skywalker and the mother of their twins, Luke and Leia.
Naturally, landing a job like that should be the single-greatest career move she could ever make,
right? Well, not exactly — since George Lucas' second Star Wars trilogy was met
with some seriously harsh reactions from critics. Not to mention the fact that the
fandom fractured with each passing installment, putting immense pressure on the cast and crew.
For Natalie Portman specifically, Revenge of the Sith came scarily close to ending her run
on the silver screen. She did what she could with Lucas' notoriously weak dialogue and
tried to give a convincing performance — but evidently it wasn't enough for most audiences.
By her own admission to New York Magazine in 2014, she struggled to find
acting parts in the wake of her stint in a galaxy far, far away. Noting that Star
Wars led many in the industry to believe she was a bad actress, Portman recalled:
"I was in the biggest-grossing movie of the decade, and no director wanted to work with me."
One likely reason for Natalie Portman losing Hollywood's good graces post-Star Wars
had to do with the direction of Padmé Amidala's story. In The Phantom Menace,
she was introduced as the intelligent, determined leader of Naboo, who fought back valiantly against
the Separatist invaders. Then, in Attack of the Clones, she showed that she wasn't
afraid to take the fight to her enemies on the battlefield of Geonosis, or break every
rule in the book to be with her true love. By the time Revenge of the Sith rolled around, however,
much of Padmé's character development and personality had suddenly disappeared.
As a result of Padmé's reduced role in the story,
Portman didn't have a lot to sink her teeth into during filming on Revenge of the Sith.
Her work amounted to delivering a few lines now and again and crying before somehow dying
of sadness — something the film itself did a poor job of explaining. The movie effectively
relegated Padmé to a plot device designed to sell moviegoers on Anakin's transformation
into Darth Vader. That's certainly not a great look for Portman herself, of course,
and things weren't helped along by the fact that many of her better scenes were cut. In particular,
one subplot involving Padmé helping found the Rebel Alliance wound up on the cutting room floor.
"We are not separatists trying to leave the Republic. We are
loyalists trying to preserve democracy in the Republic."
"I can't believe it has come to this."
It's plain enough to see that the actress and her character both got the short end of the stick.
Thankfully, it didn't take too long for the stigma of Revenge of the Sith
to wear off and for acting gigs to come Natalie Portman's way once again.
Her career is still very much intact — and will hopefully remain as such well into the future.
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