Natalie Portman Says She Put Her Soul Into "Black Swan"

In Darren Aronofsky's wonderfully creepy Black Swan, Natalie Portman plays the repressed Nina, a prima ballerina who's just landed the lead in Swan Lake. This requires her to play both the innocent, vulnerable White Swan and the dangerous, sexual Black Swan. As one of the most talented dancers in her company, Nina's got the technical precision -- it's tapping into her inner Black Swan that's the problem.

Finding that part of herself, or, as her director calls it, losing herself, opens up a Pandora's Box of psychosis and sexual hysteria and possibly fractures reality. Is fellow dancer Lily (played by Mila Kunis) a friend, rival, or lover? (Or possibly all three?) Is Nina's skin peeling off, with black feathers sprouting through? And why is Nina's mother (played by Barbara Hershey) so overly protective of her -- does she know something about her fragile daughter's condition that we don't? Portman explains what she did to prepare for the role, her diagnosis for her character, and the self-flagellation of ballet dancers.

Q: What was your training like? You had danced before?

A: I had danced when I was younger, until I was 12. But it was a great challenge to get back into that. I started with a ballet teacher, Mary Helen Bowers, a year before we started shooting, just two hours a day for the first six months. And then six months before we started shooting, we upped that to five hours a day, and swimming a mile a day for toning. And then two months before we started, we went for eight hours a day and added the choreography. And then while we were shooting for 40 days, we trained before and after the shoot, which was a 16-hour day in itself. So I was sleeping maybe five hours a night?

Q: How did the physicality of ballet affect your acting?

A: We wanted to get it to the level where it was convincing, so you didn't think about the dancing, so you could get lost in it. We had this amazing coach, Georgina Parkinson, the premiere coach on Swan Lake, who unfortunately passed away, but I worked with her on fingertips, and where you put your eyes, and all sorts of things that are sort of ballet acting, the gestures you do. And learning to keep your mouth closed, not sticking your tongue out while you're concentrating, that's definitely part of it. It's more going through a whole range of extreme emotions while you're dancing. You might have to be confident enough to get the turn right, but look insecure. But the whole physical discipline of it, that was the key. You get the monastic lifestyle -- you don't drink, you don't go out, you don't eat much food, and you put your body through extreme pain. You get the self-flagellation of the ballet dancer. Pointe shoes are torture devices!

Q: That's pretty much normal for any ballet dancer, but Nina is a special case...

A: She's actually a case where something I learned in school translated into something practical! She's got obsessive compulsive behavior, with the scratching, the bulimia, the anorexia. Ballet really lends itself to that, because it's got a sense of ritual, wrapping the shoes every day. Obsessive compulsive would be my professional diagnosis.

Q: She's striving to be perfect the whole time. Do you have any perfectionist tendencies?

A: I'm not a perfectionist, but I think it's important to work your hardest. I think I always demand a lot of myself, and I'm never really happy with what I do. I'm never satisfied. But it's a different standard. With acting, you're trying to portray imperfection. And with dancing, there's a more objective sense of how turned out you are or the angle of your leg.

Q: You might not be satisfied with your performance, but you're already getting Oscar buzz...

A: The best thing you can hope for is when you put your soul into something that people respond. It's really amazing, and it's been really rewarding. It's just the biggest dream to have people excited by this. I couldn't be more thrilled.