Natalie Portman returned to her alma mater in Cambridge, Massachusetts to deliver a speech to graduating students during Harvard's Class Day.
The Academy Award winning actress and 2003 graduate of A.B. Psychology from the Ivy League university shared her own experiences in going to school at Harvard and pursuing an acting career.
Portman revealed that she was "overwhelmed" when she first entered Harvard University. Sharing her insecurities that she thought her student peers might have thought she only got in because of her fame as an actress.
The insecurities caused her to take on a load of only hard subject in her first year - to prove to others that she indeed belonged there. But she soon realized that she was falling into her own self-made trap and had to stop living by fearing what everyone else thought.
It's a lesson she also learned from making her first film at the age of 11. A little waif of a girl with no acting experience, she starred in The Professional which was not met with critical or box office success but has earned a cult following in the years since its release.
"Ms. Portman poses better than she acts," Natalie shared a New York Times review written about her debut performance in the French action flick. But she says she was still grateful for the experience of making the movie because it ignited the passion in her for acting and making movies without the pressure of fame and celebrity.
"It is still the film [people] approach me about the most," she shared.
She also advised the graduating students not to let their own insecurities and inner voices of self-doubt and limitations stop them from moving forward with their dreams.
Citing the example of her work in the movie Black Swan, she says it was one of her biggest professional and personal successes. The movie required her to perform as a professional ballerina and pull off convincingly the dances as if she were training all her life. When she realized she bit off more than she could chew early on, instead of backing out, she doubled her efforts in dance training to get it right.
"If I had known my own limitations, I never would have taken the risk, and the risk led to one my greatest artistic and personal experiences," she said.
Her effort clearly paid off because aside from winning the Academy Award for her performance that year, she also met her future husband on the set, choreographer Benjamin Millepied, with whom she has a son with.
Portman told the students that she continues to push her limits and not let anyone else's opinion of her direct her choices. By following her own passions, she reignited in herself her love for making movies, which is what she has been doing ever since she graduated.
Her most recent film, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival, is also her directorial debut. She wrote the screenplay and stars in the film A Tale of Love and Darkness. A film that is also entirely in her mother's language of Hebrew.
"All of these are challenges [in shooting the film] I should have been terrified of, as I was completely unprepared," she said. "But once there, I had to figure it all out, and my belief that I could handle these things was half the battle."
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