Natalie Portman from Black Swan.
First, the backstory. The setting is in a New York City ballet company, preparing the first performance of the season with Swan Lake. The main character, Nina Sayers, gets the role of the lead, playing both White Swan and the Black Swan. She fails to embody the personality and character of the Black Swan and begins hallucinating, falling deep into paranoia, which leads to this scene:
The Black Swan.
To prepare for this role, Natalie Portman had to start ballet training a year in advance; Her figure and her movements had to become more authentic and believable. She trained for hours in rehearsal with professional ballerinas and went through months of swimming and cross-training.
Now, ballet is an art that takes time and effort—not just a couple of months, but years, starting from childhood. You need flexibility, balance, strength, and on top of that, incredible patience and musicality. Natalie Portman went through pain in the process: lost toenails, blisters, a broken rib from a faulty lift.
Aside from the physical aspect of her training, there was also the mental; she pushed herself deep into the dark parts of perfectionism and ambition, losing twenty pounds in the process. A line in an interview with Independent: “There were many nights I thought I was going to die.”
Natalie Portman’s dedication was unbelievable. Portraying—somewhat accurately—a professional dancer, especially one with mental illnesses was no easy task.
Natalie Portman won an Oscar for Best Actress for this role.
Image source Google
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