make more films.I wanted to tell stories, to imagine the lives of others, and help others do the same. I have found or perhaps reclaimed my reason. You have a prize now. or at least you will tomorrow. The prize is a Harvard degree in your hand. But what is your reason behind it? My Harvard degree represents, for me, the curiosity and invention that were encouraged here, the friendships I’ve sustained, the way Professor Graham told me not to descripe the way light hit a flower but rather the shadow that the flower casts, the way Professor Scarry talked about theatre is a transformative religious force, how Professor Coslin showed how much our visual cortex is activated just by imagining.Now granted these things don’t necessarily help me answer the most common questions I’m asked: What designer are you wearing? What’s your fitness regime? Any makeup tips? But I have never since been embarrassed to myself as what I might previously have thought was a stupid question. My Harvard degree and other awards are emblems of the experiences which led me to them.
The wood paneled lecture halls, the colorful fall leaves, the hot
vanilla Toscaninis, reading great novels in overstuffed library chairs, running through dining halls screaming: Ooh! Ah! City steps!City steps!City steps!City steps!
It’s easy now to romanticize my time here. But I had some very difficult times here too. Some combination of being 19, dealing with
my first heartbreak, taking birth control pills that have since been taken off the market for their depressive side effects, and spending too much time missing daylight during winter months led me to some pretty dark moments, particularly during sophomore year.There were several occasions where(听不到读)I started crying in meeting with professors, overwhelmed with what I was supposed to pull off when Icould barely get myself out of the bed in the morning. Moments when I took on the motto for my school work. Done. Not good.
If only I could finish my work, even if it took eating a jumbo pack of sour Patch Kids to get me through a single 10-page paper. I felt that I’ve accomplished a great feat. I repeat to myself. Done. Not good. A couple of years ago, I went to Tokyo with my husband and I ate at the most remarkable sushi restaurant. I don’t even eat fish. I’m vegan. So that tells you how good it was. Even with just vegetables, this sushi was the stuff you dreamed about. The restaurant has six seats. My husband and Imarveled at how anyone can make rice so superior to all other rice. We wondered why they didn’t make a bigger restaurant and be the most popular place in town. Our local friends explains to us that all the best restaurants in Tokyo are that small and do only one type of dish: sushi or tempura or teriyaki, Because they want to do that thing well and beautifully. And it’s not about quantity. It’s about taking pleasure in the perfection and beauty of the particular. I’m still leaning
now that it is about good and maybe never done, that the joy and work ethic and virtuosity we bring to the particular can impart a singular type of enjoyment to those we give to and of course, to ourselves. In my professional life, it also took me time to find my own reasons for doing my work. The first film I was in came out in 1994. Again, appallingly, the year most of you were born. I was 13 years old upon the film’s release and I can still quote what the New York Times said about me verbatim. Ms. Portman poses better than she acts. The film had a universally tepid critic response and went on to bomb commercially. That film was called The Professional, or Leon in Europe. And today, 20 years and 35 films later, it is still the film people approach me about the most, to tell me how much they loved it, how much it moved them, how it’s their favorite movie. I feel lucky that my first experience of releasing a film was initially such a disaster by all standards and measures. I learned early that my meaning had to be from the experience of making the film and the possibility of connecting with individuals rather that the foremost trophies in my industry: financial and critical success. And also, these initial reactions could be false predictors of your work’s ultimate legacy. I started choosing only jobs that I was passionate about and from which I knew I could glean meaningful experiences.This thoroughly confused everyone around me: agents, producers, and audiences alike. I made Goya’s
Ghost, a foreign independent film and studied art history visiting the produce every day for 4 months as I read about Goya and Spanish Inquisition.I made V for Vendetta, studio action movie for which I learned everything I could about freedom fighters whom otherwise may be called terrorists. From Menachem Begin to Weather Underground. I made Your Highness, a pothead comedy with Danny McBride and laughed for 3 months straight. I was able to own my meaning and not have it be determined by box office receipts or prestige. By the time I got to making Black Swan, the experience was entirely my own. I felt immune to the worst things anyone could say or write about me, and to whether the audience felt like going to see my movie or not. It was instructive for me to see the ballet dancers. For ballet dancers, once your technique gets to a certain level, the only thing that separates you from others is your quirks or even flaws. One ballerina was famous for how she turned slightly off balanced. You can never be the best, technically. Someone will always have a higher jump or a more beautiful line. The only thing you can be the best at is developing your own self. Authoring your own experience was very much what Black Swan itself was about. I worked with Darren Aronofsky the film’s director who changed my last line in the movie to: “It was perfect!”because my character Nina is only artisticallysuccessful when she finds perfection and pleasure for herself not when she’s
trying to be perfect in the eyes of others.
So when Black Swan was successful financially and I began receiving accolades I felt honored and grateful to have connected with people. But the true core of my meaning I have already established. And I needed it to be independent of people’s reactions to me. People told me that Black Swan was an artistic risk. A scary challenge to try to portray a ballet dancer, but it didn’t feel like courage or daring that drove me to it. I was so oblivious to my own limits that I did things I was woefully unprepared to do. And so the very inexperience that in college had made me insecure and made me want to play by others’ rules now is actually making me take risksI didn’t even realize were risks. When Darren asked me if I can do ballet I told him that I was basically a ballerina which by the way I wholeheartedly believed,When it quickly became clear and preparing for the film that I was maybe 15 years away from being a ballerina. It made me work a million times harder and of course the magic of cinema and the body doubles helped the final effect.But the point is, if I had known my own limitations I never would have taken the risk. And the risk led to one of my greatest artistic and personal experiences. And that I not only felt completely free, I also met my husband during the filming. Similarly, I just directed my first film, A Tale of Love in Darkness. I was quite blind to the challenges ahead of me. The film is a period film, completely in Hebrew,