Actress Natalie Portman doesn’t encourage young people to become child actors. The Black Swan star, 42, launched her career at age 12 when she starred in the action film Leon: The Professional in 1994.
She admitted that it’s only down to ‘luck’ and having ‘overprotective parents’ that she wasn’t ‘harmed’, reports ‘Female First UK’.
She told Variety: “I would not encourage young people to go into this. “I don’t mean ever; I mean as children. I feel it was almost an accident of luck that I was not harmed, also combined with very overprotective, wonderful parents.”
The ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ star is hopeful that the industry is looking after young performers better these days. She said: “I’ve heard too many bad stories to think that any children should be part of it. 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.”
However, she added: “But ultimately, I don’t believe that kids should work. “I think kids should play and go to school.”
As per ‘Female First UK’, Natalie – who has son Aleph, 12, and daughter Amalia, six, with husband Benjamin Millepied – didn’t come away from being a child actor completely unscathed. Her classmates used to tease her for her career path because they believed she thought she was “special.” Natalie was speaking to Drew Barrymore for the fellow actress’ eponymously titled talk show, in 2020, when Drew – who was also a child actor and starred with Natalie in the 1996 movie ‘Everyone Says I Love You’ – said: “I read this thing about how you didn’t have an easy time in school because you would go out to movies and then come back and just have an awkward time with the other kids at school … I haven’t really read that from a lot of people and that was totally my experience, I really related to that.” (IANS)
