Natalie Portman Reveals the Very Unexpected Job She’d Undertake If Acting Hadn’t Worked Out for Her

Her plan B is somehow just as daring as taking on Hollywood—but in a very different way.

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Natalie Portman
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Natalie Portman, as you know, is an actress, and a really, really good one at that—a Best Actress Oscar winner for her role in Black Swan, and the star of numerous critically acclaimed movies like Jackie, Closer, and May/December. But had this whole acting gig not worked out, Portman’s plan B is, admittedly, a little surprising.

“I think I’d be like Jane Goodall, living with animals in the wild,” Portman told Entertainment Tonight of the celebrated zoologist.  

Natalie Portman

A zoologist she is not, but Portman does have to deal with the zoo of being famous on a daily basis.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

In Portman’s latest project, Lady in the Lake—which premieres on Apple TV+ on Friday—she stars as Maddie, “a 1960s housewife who decided to leave all she’s ever known to work as a reporter and uncover the truth of an unsolved murder,” Entertainment Tonight reports.

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“She’s so in a tunnel of her own needs that it’s like she’s blind to everything else around her,” Portman said of her character. “It was wild to inhabit her intensity.”

Natalie Portman

Portman at the premiere of her latest, "Lady in the Lake."

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Natalie Portman

Portman promoting the project, which is out July 19 on Apple TV+.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Portman stars alongside Moses Ingram, who plays Cleo Johnson, “a hardworking mother on a mission to advance the lives of Black people in Baltimore,” Entertainment Tonight writes, adding that the plotline of “the two women’s differing but interconnected lives is why Portman signed on for the project.”

According to Portman herself, “It had two such incredible female roles—both women looking for their freedom in this incredible world of the 1960s in Baltimore, beautifully realized by all of our daughters,” she said.

Natalie Portman

Portman and Ingram are women who are both looking for freedom in 1960s Baltimore in the new show.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Ingram, for her part, called Portman “a legend,” and said of working alongside her that “I was overwhelmed in the beginning,” she said. “Every day I sit next to her I’m still overwhelmed that someone I’ve watched for so many years, I somehow landed in the TV next to her. It’s super surreal. I’m grateful for it.”

Being Jane Goodall would be no doubt interesting—but Portman is doing just fine with plan A.

Rachel Burchfield
Rachel Burchfield
Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.