'I would not encourage young people to go into this': Natalie Portman says children should not be actors



Natalie Portman discouraged children from becoming actors due to possible harm, adding that she doesn't believe children should work at all.

Portman, who first starred in "Léon: The Professional" at 12 years old and "Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace" while in high school, told Variety that she's heard too many horror stories about children involved in acting.

"Would you encourage your children to get into this industry? Or do you see enough change that it feels safe for them if they choose to get into it?" a host from the outlet's podcast asked Portman.

"I would not encourage young people to go into this. I don’t mean ever; I mean as children," Portman began. "I feel it was almost an accident of luck that I was not harmed, also combined with very overprotective, wonderful parents. You don’t like it when you’re a kid, and you’re grateful for it when you’re an adult."

Portman also explained that she's "heard too many bad stories" to think that children should be involved in acting. The actress is the mother of two children, ages 12 and 6, according to the New York Post.

"Having said that, I know all the conversations that we’ve been having these past few years. It’s made people more aware and careful. But ultimately, I don’t believe that kids should work. I think kids should play and go to school," she concluded.

When Portman appeared on actor Dax Shepard's podcast "Armchair Expert" in 2020, she revealed that she felt sexualized as a child actor.

"Being sexualized as a child took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid," she told Shepard. In fact, Portman feared objectification in her youth so much that she purposely developed a "super-serious and prude and conservative" persona as a safety mechanism.

"I consciously cultivated that because it was a way to make me feel safe. If someone respects you, they’re not going to objectify you."

The actress also recalled how a radio station made the creepy decision to publicly anticipate her 18th birthday.

"A countdown was started on my local radio show to my 18th birthday, euphemistically the date that I would be legal to sleep with. Movie reviewers talked about my budding breasts in reviews," Portman also explained.

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Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman says she felt unsafe while being sexualized as a child actress



Actress Natalie Portman, 39, says that she often felt unsafe as a child actress when being sexually objectified by older men.

What are the details?

According to the New York Post, Portman — who has been working in the entertainment industry since she was at least 12 years old — said that she feels being sexualized as a child in Hollywood crippled her sexuality as an adult.

During a Monday podcast with fellow actor Dax Shepard, Portman revealed that being sexualized as a child actress made her afraid.

"Being sexualized as a child took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid," the Oscar winner told Shepard during his "Armchair Expert" podcast. "So many people had this impression of me that I was super serious and prude and conservative as I got older. I consciously cultivated that because it was a way to make me feel safe."

When Portman was 16 years old, she was offered the role of "Lolita" in a production based on Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 book of the same name. She said she turned down the role due to the explicit underage sexual content.

"At that age you have to do your own sexuality, and you have to do your own desire, and you do want to explore those things," she said. "But you don't feel safe necessarily. You build these fortresses."

She explained, "I was definitely aware of the fact that I was being portrayed — mainly in kind of journalism around when the movies would come out — as like this Lolita figure. ... I've actually talked about it, I wrote a thing about it for the Women's March a few years ago about how being sexualized as a child I think took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid. It made me feel like the way that I could be safe was to be like, 'I'm conservative and I'm serious and you should respect me and I'm smart and don't look at me that way.'"

Portman added that as a child actress, she was forced to build virtual fortresses in order to keep herself safe.

"You're told as a girl and a woman that you're supposed to want to [be objectified], and that it's a good thing, people finding you attractive or people thinking you're sexy," she continued. "These words that we use around young girls in particular — and then it's complicated because it doesn't necessarily always make you feel good or feel safe. You do have your own sexuality and your own desire, and you do want to explore things, and you do want to be open, but you don't feel safe necessarily when there's, like, older men that are, like, interested. You're like 'No, no, no, no.'"