Natalie Portman has been blasted onto cinema screens as Mighty Thor in the brand new Marvel blockbuster Thor: Love and Thundermarking her explosive, long-awaited return to the MCU.
The new MCU release, out now in UK cinemas, sees her return as Jane Foster opposite Chris Hemsworth‘s Thor Odinson and Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie… but this time she’s not alone in her lab researching the ins and outs of astrophysics.
Oh no. Jane is transformed into Mighty Thor in the Taika Waititi movie, complete with even more powerful weapons to rival her former love interest.
It is not the first time that the Star Wars actor has undergone an intense and dramatic transformation for a role, throwing herself into parts that are both physically and mentally grueling.
From months of training trying her best to master the ballet art to shaving her head, it seems Natalie isn’t one to do anything half-heartedly.
From V for Vendetta to Black Swan, here are some of her most profound transformations:
Thor: Love and Thunder
Let’s start with Natalie’s most recent film, Thor: Love and Thunder, in which she stars Chris, Tessa and Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher.
In the MCU movie, she returns as astrophysicist Jane Foster on screen for the first time since 2013, but – look at it – she’s transformed into the Mighty Thor, with a pieced-together Mjölnir and with divine powers.
The role marked the first time in her career that she was asked to grow up, with camera tricks that made it appear as if her character was six feet tall, much taller than her own 5ft3 frame.
The actor trained for 10 months with the help of trainer Naomi Pendergast, aiming to “develop definition of arms and abdomen,” Naomi said. Variety†
“We worked on building her upper body three times a week, including arm, back, chest exercises, boxing, skipping and running. The other two days were devoted to injury prevention work, including Pilates-based exercises, stretching, relaxation and balance exercises,” she said.
The hard work has certainly paid off!
Black Swan
Thor: Love and Thunder wasn’t the first time Natalie had to stick to a strict fitness regime for a role, as she had to do for her Oscar-winning turn as ballerina Nina Sayers in Black Swan.
To prepare for the poignant Darren Aronofsky movie, the protagonist trained eight hours a day, six days a week with exercises such as ballet classes, swimming, cross training and endurance exercises, former New York City Ballet dancer Mary Helen Bowers told me. To shape magazine.
Natalie lost a significant amount of weight for the role, emphasizing the physical and mental toll her transformation took when speaking to Entertainment Weekly when she said, “It was the first time I understood how to get into a role like that. could hold true that it could bring you down.’
She emphasized how much pain dancers endure in the real world, saying, “All dancers always dance with an extreme injury. Not just a sore muscle, they’re dancing on a sprained ankle or a twisted neck or something’, after having dislocated a rib themselves during rehearsals.
V for Vendetta
One of the most poignant moments of the 2005 dystopian film V for Vendetta, starring Hugo Weaving as the titular V, was when Natalie’s head, Evey Hammond, was shaved.
Not only did she shave her head in real life, but she did it on camera for the scene – so they had to make sure they got it right the first time.
When asked by MovieWeb in 2006, when it was ‘traumatic’ to shave her head, she replied, ‘I was trying to concentrate like that, to have character; because we only had one chance to do it. I don’t really have any personal memories of the experience.’
She added that her shaved hair was actually more recognizable when she was outside because “people tend to just stare naturally” when they see a woman with a shaved head, she noted.
Vox Lux
In Vox Lux, Natalie was able to fulfill her pop star fantasy playing former music prodigy Celeste en route to a comeback to the limelight.
She looked very different from her real self when she portrayed the character, she wore 80s-esque metallic outfits and her hair was styled in quilted mohawks and tattoos.
During an interview with Refinery29revealed the film’s head of makeup, Anouck Sullivan, the inspiration behind Celeste’s stunning looks.
‘Of course I love vintage glam rock stars. My references will always naturally be something along the lines of the David Bowie era. But we didn’t refer directly to specific pop stars in the film,” Anouck said.
“Sure, there were a few in the back of my mind when I came up with the looks, but none of the names were direct inspiration. We just wanted Celeste to be this futuristic person. Celeste’s final performance look wasn’t intentionally inspired by Bowie, but it kinda finished.”
Star Wars Prequel Movies
Of course, we can’t talk about Natalie’s on-screen transformations without discussing Star Wars.
In the prequel film trilogy, which came out between 1999 and 2005, she played Padmé Amidala, going from the Queen of Naboo as a teenager to a senator.
Padmé’s ensembles and makeup were so dainty as queen that when she disguised herself as one of the ruler’s servants, she managed to avoid suspicion.
The maidservant who acted as her bait in the first film of the trilogy, The Phantom Menace, was played by none other than Keira Knightley, who was 12 years old at the time, while Natalie was 16.
While many people have long said they can spot an uncanny resemblance between the pair, this became even more apparent when they dressed up as Padmé, with their own mothers admitting that they sometimes found it hard to distinguish between the two of them.
Many people still hope that Natalie will return to the Star Wars franchise, especially since her on-screen love Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) returned as Darth Vader in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, opposite Ewan McGregor as the titular character.
Jackie
In 2016, Natalie took on the immense responsibility of portraying former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie, with her performance earning her a third Oscar nomination.
In addition to wearing historically correct clothes and haircut as Jackie would have done, the actor also adopted the global trendsetter’s accent, with Jackie having spent a lot of time in Manhattan throughout her life, including during her school days.
Dialogue coach Samara Bay said: Shame that Natalie ‘clearly worked diligently with original clips of Jackie herself and a dialect coach to translate Jackie’s sounds in her mouth, both in terms of quality and intonations as well as the vowels and consonants’.
While attending the American premiere of the film in New York, Natalie said: ‘The voice is very special… and the voice is different when she speaks in public and privately.
She continued, “It was fun doing it for the first time. I remember in the beginning, basically everyone was kind of [thinking]“Oh Oh. What’s going on here? It’s a little over-the-top or campy.”’
Thor: Love and Thunder is now in theaters.
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