As well as being a talented, Oscar winning actress, director, and talented comedian on the likes of SNL, Natalie Portman continues to prove that she can do it all as she has also been a strong advocator of the Time’s Up and Me Too movements.
The actress has defended Woody Allen’s accuser Dylan Farrow as well as being open about her own experiences in the movie industry.
In a recent interview with Buzzfeed, Portman continued to talk about these issues, as well as about her new film, Annihilation.
The actress was also asked about her brilliant Golden Globes moment when on presenting the award for Best Director, said ‘Here are the all-male nominees.’
“I discussed with some of the women I've been working with that they had offered to me to present the director category, but I felt uncomfortable because it seemed to be excluding some deserving nominees,” she said, “And how could I bring attention to it without disrespecting the nominees? Because it's not their fault, and they all made great work. You don't want to not recognize them. It's just, why aren't we recognizing the people who aren't part of this exclusive club? So one of the women recommended I say that, and it felt like stating something that was true.”
She continued: “That's part of what we're here to do. We have to make it weird for people to walk in a room where everyone's not in the room. If you look around a room and everyone looks like you, get out of that room. Or change that room. Whether you go to a restaurant, whether you go to your kid's school, whether you go to work — if you look around, and everyone's not in the room, change that room.”
She also spoke about signing the Roman Polanski petition after he was arrested in Switzerland in 2009, saying that she “very much regret[s] it” and “take[s] responsibility for not thinking about it enough.”
She explained: “Someone I respected gave it to me, and said, "I signed this. Will you too?" And I was like, sure. It was a mistake. The thing I feel like I gained from it is empathy towards people who have made mistakes. We lived in a different world, and that doesn't excuse anything. But you can have your eyes opened and completely change the way you want to live. My eyes were not open.”