Without rehearsals, Natalie Portman had a special challenge ahead of her as she took on her latest role in Todd Haynes’ latest drama, “May December.”
Portman stars opposite Julianne Moore as Elizabeth Berry, an actress set to portray Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Moore), a woman whose life became the subject of tabloid fodder when she began a sexual relationship with a 12-year-old boy, Joe. Two decades later, Elizabeth studies Gracie and Joe (now a 36-year-old man) as she preps for her role, analyzing the cracks in their façade. Overtime, Elizabeth slowly finds herself adopting more and more of Gracie’s traits.
But with the obstacle of not rehearsing together, the “Black Swan” star reveals she was “so scared” because “I didn’t know what she was going to do.”
“The good part about it was that the way my character studied her to become her, I had to do also. So I had to like watch everything she did and go like, ‘How am I going to mimic that?’” she told Variety at the special screening on Thursday night.
Otherwise, Portman describes her experience working with Moore with nothing but high praise calling “The Kids Are All Right” star the “best human ever.”
“I adore her. I’ve admired her acting for so long and dreamed about working with her for so long and then, to get to see that she’s as kind as she is brilliant was amazing,” Portman explained. “It made me feel very safe. The best thing you can feel is that you can try anything and fall on your face and you’re free and so we really just got to play in a very safe environment that Todd really created, also, because he was he just created this loving bubble around us.”
