An Oscar-winning actress before the age of 30, Natalie Portman committed herself to her roles completely, whether it meant shaving her head for 2005's V for Vendetta, spending months learning ballet for 2010's Black Swan, or singing when she took on the role of a troubled pop star in 2018's Vox Lux.

Born in Jerusalem on June 9, 1981 to an artist mother and doctor father, Portman moved to New York when she was three. Raised on Long Island, she was discovered by a modeling agent who signed her on the spot. Her modeling stint led to an audition for Luc Besson's Leon (or The Professional, as it was called in the United States). Due to her age (she was 12 when the film was cast), Portman was initially turned down for the lead role of Mathilda, a girl who asks a hit man (Jean Reno) to train her as an assassin to avenge her brother's death and innocently falls in love with him in the process. However, she ultimately won the part and her 1994 film debut earned a number of positive notices. Portman then took on the role of Al Pacino's step-daughter in another demanding film, Michael Mann's Heat (1995). She followed this up with lighter fare, like Mars Attacks! (1996), Everyone Says I Love You, and Beautiful Girls. Portman took on another title role with her 1997 Broadway debut in The Diary of Anne Frank. She stayed with the show until May 1998, for which time she also received positive notices. After lending her voice to The Prince of Egypt (1998), Portman took on the role of Queen Amidala in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999). She ended the 20th century with projects like Wayne Wang's Anywhere But Here and Where the Heart Is.

Offscreen, Portman enrolled for her college education at Harvard University. A psychology major, she made it clear upon her enrollment that, aside from her role as Queen Amidala in the Star Wars films, she would not accept any film roles for the duration of her education. Portman's first foray following graduation was the 2003 Civil War ensemble drama Cold Mountain, alongside Renee Zellweger and Nicole Kidman. In 2004, she was at the forefront of both Garden State, a moody dramedy that endeared her to fans, and Closer, a taut, intimate drama that earned her massive critical accolades, as well as her first Oscar nomination.

In 2005, Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith marked Portman's final appearance in the franchise, and the actress could be seen with an iconic pixie haircut after shaving her head for a role in the graphic-novel adaptation V for Vendetta. The dystopian action thriller received mixed reviews, but Portman's performance, as usual, earned accolades. Per her usual M.O., she completed a number of independent, arthouse, or otherwise challenging projects for every blockbuster under her belt, like the 2006 Milos Forman-directed period drama Goya's Ghosts, and the Wes Anderson 2007 road (or rather, train) movie The Darjeeling Limited. During this time, Portman hosted Saturday Night Live, performing the brash, expletive-laden "Natalie's Rap" in an SNL Digital Short; the track was included on the Lonely Island's 2009 album Incredibad. In 2007, she appeared in the Michel Gondry-directed music video for Paul McCartney's "Dance Tonight" from that year's Memory Almost Full.

After appearing opposite Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana as Anne Boleyn, the famously beheaded wife of King Henry VII, in the 2008 period drama The Other Boleyn Girl, Portman turned her high-brow image on its ear the very next year, playing a small town cheerleader turned army wife in the Iraq War drama Brothers. Portman had even more impressive turns awaiting her, however, as 2010 brought the lead role in the hallucinatory Darren Aronofsky film The Black Swan, about an obsessively diligent ballerina who, in order to play both the innocent and dark sides of femininity with the leading role in Swan Lake, must battle her own conflicting inner demons as a woman. Portman rigorously trained in ballet for six months to perform the role, and her efforts paid dividends. Her performance received massive adoration from critics and audiences alike, and she emerged with an Academy Award for Best Actress. In a change of pace from the gritty material in The Black Swan, she appeared in the stoner comedy Your Highness, the rom-com No Strings Attached, and the comic book action thriller Thor. In 2015, Portman's directorial debut A Tale of Love and Darkness, an adaptation of an autobiographical novel by Israeli writer Amos Oz, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Portman's portrayal of First Lady Jackie Kennedy after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Pablo Larrain's 2016 film Jackie earned her a SAG Award, as well as nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and BAFTA Award for Best Actress. Other career highlights in the late 2010s included 2018's sci-fi horror movie Annihilation and that year's Vox Lux, in which Portman played a pop star haunted by the school shooting that propelled her to fame as a teenager. The film featured songs by Sia and a score by Scott Walker. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx & Heather Phares, Rovi