Portman will bring to the big screen Amos Oz's memoir about growing up in 1940s and Fifties Jerusalem.
By NATHAN BURSTEINNatalie Portman 88(photo credit: Courtesy)
The world's most famous Israeli-born actress is joining the ranks of Hollywood stars getting behind the camera, but with a major difference: she'll be doing it in Hebrew.
Natalie Portman reveals in the March issue of W magazine that she'll make her directorial debut with A Tale of Love and Darkness, bringing to the big screen Amos Oz's memoir about growing up in 1940s and Fifties Jerusalem. Portman told the fashion magazine that she plans to preserve the language of the memoir by directing the film in Hebrew. "I've been reading Oz since high school, and when I read his biography I just sort of saw it," the actress said.
A 2005 Oscar nominee for Closer, Portman appears on next month's W cover with Scarlett Johansson. The pair stars as wife and mistress of Henry VIII in The Other Boleyn Sister, a drama that premiered Sunday at the Berlin International Film Festival and opens in Israel on April 10.
In addition to being fluent in Hebrew, Portman is described in the W profile as "proficient in French" and able to speak "some Arabic, thanks to several graduate-level courses at Hebrew University in Jerusalem." The 26-year-old Harvard graduate studied at the Israeli university in the fall of 2004 before filming Free Zone, a prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival shot in Hebrew, Arabic and English.
Though she hasn't yet begun work on A Tale of Love and Darkness, Portman has already received professional kudos from Wong Kar-Wai, who directed the actress in 2007 Cannes opener My Blueberry Nights.
"Her discipline will make her a well-organized and well-prepared director on set," the Chinese filmmaker said. "I'm sure she will put the whole weight of the film on her shoulders, making everyone's job easier but her own."
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