-Our first guest tonight is an Academy Award-winning actress
you know from films like "Black Swan," "Jackie,"
and the "Star Wars" prequels.
Her new children's book, there it is right here,
"Natalie Portman's Fables," is available now.
Please welcome back to the show Natalie Portman.
Hi, Natalie, how are you? -Hi, I'm good.
I'm so glad to talk to you.
-It's wonderful to talk to you now as well.
And I should notice our nows are very different,
because you are in Australia.
It is very early for you, yes?
-Yeah, it's like 7:30, so it's not super early.
Normal parent early.
-Yes. I guess that's the thing,
that once you become a parent, you realize you have
a different sliding scale for what being early is.
And I should use that as transition to talk about
your book, which is great that you decided to write one.
What have you changed about
these sort of three existing fables?
-Well, I realized when I was reading to my kids --
I have a 9-year-old son and a 3 1/2-year-old daughter.
And when I started reading to my daughter, I realized
so many of the classic books
have almost all male protagonists.
And so, I started changing the pronouns.
And then I was like, "This just needs to be different."
So I was like, "we don't need to throw away the old stories.
I just want to have them
with a character population that reflects the world more."
So, I set out to rewrite three of -- three of my favorites.
-So I've got -- I have two boys.
They're 4 1/2, 2 1/2.
And I'm wondering, did your kids then have
different favorite books because their genders
were different, or did they like the same thing?
-They really liked both --
they really both liked the same things,
which was a really nice thing to see.
But then I realized that a lot of the kind of
feminist-skewing books were geared towards girls,
and none of them became her favorites.
But my son wasn't even exposed to them in terms of, like,
people giving presents or the kinds of things, you know,
they aim at him.
So I was like, "Oh, we need the classic things,
the things that all kids read,
to have just a real reflection of the world."
-I would imagine the scariest thing about writing
a children's book would be your own children's reaction to it.
How have they responded so far?
-Yeah, no, they're my toughest critics, by far.
Like, they are constantly cutting me down and telling me,
you know -- [ Laughter ]
I'm inadequate in whatever way.
So they were kind of the best,
most honest editors, like throughout.
I would just read it to them, and you could tell
when they were bored or losing attention
or, you know, didn't get something.
So, it was great to be able to, like, change it
and test it out on them, and see what I could do
to make them laugh.
-Have they -- are there other sort of bodies of your work
that they've watched?
Have they watched any of your movies?
-No, they haven't. I think it's weird for them
to see you in, like, a different context than their mom.
-Sure.
-Like, until they're older and they can kind of
conceptually get it better.
Do your kids watch you, ever? -No, I mean, they've seen me
on -- you know where they see me, is on Taxi TV.
-Oh. -'Cause every now and then
there will be a clip of the show.
-And they don't -- -That's major.
You've really made it. -Yeah, they really --
I mean, for a kid, if you can show up in any sort of
mode of transportation, they kind of lose their minds.
-That's super cool. -Yeah, but they then --
they sort of recognize me, and then they want me to mute it.
Whereas I tell them, "Look, the only way it's even possible
for the taxi driver to know who's in the car
is if we turn the volume up way high."
[ Laughter ]
You're actually -- I hope I'm right here,
you're in Australia working on the new "Thor" movie,
is that correct? -Yes, yes.
We haven't started filming yet. We're just prepping.
-And this is with -- Taika is the director.
He's such a fantastic director.
I think now it obviously makes perfect sense,
but maybe it was a little unlikely in the beginning
to direct a big superhero franchise like this.
Is it exciting to work with him?
-It's so awesome.
He's just got, like, the best spirit.
He's so -- he's like a very good person,
and he's also hilarious.
And the combination is very, very endearing.
So, it's very exciting to get to go to work and, like,
laugh a lot there.
-I know that there's no movie
that's more under wraps than a Marvel movie,
but there is rumors, at least,
that you might be wielding the hammer.
That's pretty exciting. -Yeah, yeah, no.
I mean, we've -- we've definitely been able
to talk about and openly talked about the fact
that Jane becomes the Mighty Thor,
like in some of the graphic novels.
So it's pretty -- pretty exciting to get my superhero on.
-It's been long overdue.
Something else that's really exciting and ties into
I think a lot of what we're talking about is you were
announced as one of the owners of a new
professional women's soccer team.
Here's a picture of you with Megan Rapinoe.
She's one of our favorites here as well.
How did you get involved with being one of the owners
of this new team?
-Well, with Time's Up, it was kind of the first time
that women across industries had gotten together.
So women in tech, and business, and sports, and film,
and medicine, advertising, all these different
kind of backgrounds came together.
And when we started hearing from some of the athletes,
particularly the one that really inspired me
was listening to Abby Wambach to talk about her experience.
And, to think these best players in the world,
in the world's most popular sport,
weren't being given the kind of recognition,
amplification, you know, compensation,
that they deserved was really crazy.
So a group of us got together and said,
"Okay, we're going to try and take this differently."
And so it's the first women-led, women-investor
professional sport team.
And we're Angel City FC, and we'll be starting in 2022.
We're just going into player recruitment and all of that.
-Did you play soccer in high school?
-Oh, no. I'm like the least athletic person of all time.
Maybe that's why I admire it so much.
-Right. -But that's why --
Everyone who knows me is like, "How did you end up in this?"
But I'm a big -- I'm a big fan. I really admire it.
And I could not, like, dribble a ball to save my life.
-It should be noted that I think when you look at owners
of male sports, you never think,
"Oh, I bet they'd be really good at football."
-Right. -So, I think it's very natural
to maybe not be someone who has to go out on the field as well.
-Exactly. It's like kind of part of being
a fan is they're, like, kind of, you know,
stand-ins for what you wish you could do.
-Absolutely. You mentioned Time's Up.
I know you've been really involved not only with that,
but very vocal politically.
You know, it's a very strange time to talk,
because obviously we're, you know, a week out
from an election.
There are maybe reasons to be optimistic
as well as reasons to be deeply pessimistic.
How are you -- what is your emotional state right now?
-Uh, I'm -- I think I'm on edge,
as most people are, about what is going to happen.
Because it feels like it will really determine
the future in a big way for our kids.
But I am -- what makes me optimistic
is how engaged people have become.
Like, I figure people care more than they ever have
in my lifetime for sure about politics
and what's happening and being personally involved
and personally invested and realizing that
their votes make a difference.
And so, that's been kind of the silver lining, I think,
to all of this, is that everyone is really
kind of feeling like they're part of this,
and they need to be active.
-I guess 3 is probably too young to be aware.
But is your -- how aware is your 9-year-old
of everything that's happening? -Oh, so aware.
I mean, the -- both my kids are aware.
I mean, my 3-year-old obviously less so,
but she'll say -- she'll talk about Trump and Biden,
like in conversation.
I think she hears it so much.
And my son is very aware and talks about it with his friends.
And he really realized how much it's impacted them.
Like, they've grown up largely under this presidency.
And it's really a different --
I mean, my daughter completely, of course,
but my son, half his life has been under this presidency.
And so it's quite -- quite remarkable
how much these young people are engaged and curious.
-It is interesting how they're -- it's pretty easy,
I feel like, to explain the current President
to kids, because he is like a fable in a lot of ways.
Like, if they read one or two children's books, you're like,
"Here's where he fits in."
-Yeah. And you try not to, like --
I try not to --
I always want my kids to have nuance and never be like,
"Oh, this person is bad --" -Of course.
-Or "This person is good," and be like,
"You know, people are complicated."
But it's comp-- it's hard to get that across with Trump.
I'm like -- I don't want to like demonize,
but like, I might just demonize him, you know?
-We had the best --
-Yeah, it's hard to find the nuance.
-We had the best thing in the world happen the other day,
which is my sister-in-law, her name is Ariel,
and she's very close with my wife,
and we love her very much, but we were talking
about Donald Trump to our 4-year-old,
and one of the things we said is, "He's very rude."
And he took that in and he said,
"But not as rude as Ariel, right?"
And I was like, "Oh, this is... [ Laughter ]
...literally the greatest --"
And just to be able to say to him, like, "No, he's not.
[ Laughter ]
He's not like that."
-That's great.
-Hey, it's always so wonderful to see you.
I can't wait to read the book to my kids.
And be well over there.
-Thank you. You too.