Lindsay Lohan wanted lead role in "Black Swan"

According to recent news items, controversial actress Lindsay Lohan, famous for her roles in movies such as The Parent Trap remake, Mean Girls, and I Know Who Killed Me and also for her well-publicized court/rehab life, feels as though she "deserves" the role Natalie Portman had in Black Swan - that of a schizophrenic ballerina suffering from an eating disorder and stress.

Lohan reportedly took ballet until she was 19.

Do you think Lohan would have been a good choice for Nina, or too close to real-life for comfort?

Has Nat's baby's name been revealed?

According to an article found in an Israeli newspaper, Natalie and her fiancee Benjamin Millepied have named their son Alef.

Alef is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and can also mean "leader".

Neither Portman nor Millepied have commented on the name, which was supposedly revealed by Nat's cousin.

Do you like the name Alef? Do you think this report is true?


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Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman

Place Of Birth:

Jerusalem, Israel

Date Of Birth:

June 9, 1981

Tight-bodied hottie Natalie Portman plays Queen Amidala in the Star Wars movies, but you'll blast off when she exposes her lean, limber body in the buff. See Natalie Portman nude, showing off her hot ass in Hotel Chevalier, stripping to a thong inCloser, and going bare in Goya's Ghosts. Mr Skin shows you every Natalie Portman sexy scene.

   

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman

Place Of Birth:

Jerusalem, Israel

Date Of Birth:

June 9, 1981

Tight-bodied hottie Natalie Portman plays Queen Amidala in the Star Wars movies, but you'll blast off when she exposes her lean, limber body in the buff. See Natalie Portman nude, showing off her hot ass in Hotel Chevalier, stripping to a thong inCloser, and going bare in Goya's Ghosts. Mr Skin shows you every Natalie Portman sexy scene.

   

Darren Aronofsky and "Hobgoblin" + a boy for Natalie!

Darren Aronofsky, the director of Black Swan, will be directing the HBO drama Hobgoblin, written by Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) and his wife, Ayelet Waldman.

The series tells the fictional story of a group of con men and wizards who fight against Hitler and the Nazis during World War II.

This will be Aronofsky's first work since dropping out of Fox's The Wolverine, the sequel to 2009's successful X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Natalie has finally given birth! Her and fiance Benjamin Millepied welcomed a baby boy earlier this morning. It has not yet been revealed what the name of the baby is.

Congratulations to them!

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Is Natalie Portman going to quit acting?

In a recent interview, Nat revealed that she may give up acting to raise her child, following in the footsteps on screen legend Audrey Hepburn.

She told The Sun's Buzz Magazine: "Audrey made some good choices in life... More and more I realize how unimportant it is to be in the history books or anything like that. Putting time and energy into your children - that's valuable."

A part of me is sad, considering how well her career has been going lately, especially with the Oscar and Golden Globe wins, but as long as she's happy with her life, I can't complain.

Source (Digital Spy)

No Strings Attached Announced for Blu-ray and DVD

A minor hit when it was dropped into theaters in late January (as opposed to Valentine’s Day), No Strings Attached will see its release as a BD/DVD combo pack on May 10. So just as the school year ends and summer lovin’ begins, it will be done so with “no strings attached.”

Academy Award winner Natalie Portman (Black Swan) and Ashton Kutcher star in this R-rated romantic comedy, directed by Ivan Reitman, that gives an “intimate look” at the ups and down of being sex buddies.

To promote the disc, Paramount Home Entertainment has teamed with online dating and relationship site PerfectMatch.com. An insert in the Blu-ray package will offer singles looking to pursue their own modern-day relationship a free three-month premium subscription to PerfectMatch ($179 value).

The DVD and BD release will include a commentary from director Ivan Reitman, two featurettes (Sex Friends: Getting Together and Inside the Sassy Halls of Secret High), deleted scenes and alternate storylines. The BD comes with a single exclusive, a featurette titled Modern Love.

The DVD will be priced to own at $19.99, while the combo release will retail for $29.99.

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"The Other Woman" On DVD

The Other Woman had a blink and miss it release into theatres a few weeks ago, and before that a more successful release to Video On Demand. Now the film, originally titled Love And Other Pursuits, will finally get a DVD and Blu-ray release on May 17.

Personally, I'm quite curious to finally check this film out. Probably more so than I am in seeing No Strings Attached. If you're also curious, you can order via our Amazon links here - Blu-ray and DVD.

With the release comes a new cover image.

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New banner for "Thor" featuring Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman wins Oscar for "Black Swan"

A visibly nervous and very pregnant Natalie Portman was near tears after winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role at the Oscars Sunday night (February 27) for her performance as a ballerina on the verge of a mental breakdown in Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan."


"Thank you. Thank you so much. This is insane!" the 29-year-old first-time Oscar winner enthused after taking the stage. "I truly and sincerely wish that the prize tonight was to get to work with my fellow nominees."

Although just the second-youngest of her co-nominees, Portman was previously nominated as Best Supporting Actress for her role in "Closer" and has been working with some of the best directors in the business since childhood — and in a rambling speech she nearly managed to thank all of them.

"Luc Besson, who gave me my first job [in 'The Professional']," Portman began. "['Closer' director] Mike Nichols, who has been my hero. And to everyone who's ever hired me!"

"Darren Aronofsky, you are a visionary," she added of her "Black Swan" director. "I am so blessed to have gotten to work for you."

Portman saved her most effusive gratitude, however, for her parents, who were in the audience, and especially for her fiancé Benjamin Millepied, with whom she is having a child.

"I want to thank my parents for giving me the opportunity to work from such an early age. My beautiful love, Benjamin, who has now given me my most important role of my life," she gushed. "Most importantly, my family, my friends, and my love, thank you so much."

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"Black Swan" wins big at the Independent Spirit Awards

Tonight Black Swan won Best Cinematgoraphy, Best Director, Best Female Lead, and best Picture at the Independent Spirit Awards. Natalie Portman and Darren Aronofsky were in attendance for the event.

Pictures of Portman's and Aronofsky's red carpet attire under the cut.

"Hesher" trailer starring Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman has hung up her tutu for big glasses in the movie Hesher, co-starring Inception star Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film is about a family that loses their matriarch, and their way. Rainn Wilson stars as a father broken and distraught over the loss of his wife, while Gordon-Levitt plays an aimless, angry man who befriends Wilson's son. Then, enter Portman, whom the boy may or may not have a crush on.

New "Thor" Trailer and Natalie Screenshot

Natalie Portman and Darren Aronofsky at the Oscars Luncheon

"Thor" Super Bowl Spot

NYT article about Benjamin Millepied

IT was the laugh heard around the Web. Natalie Portman, glowing in a pink Viktor & Rolf gown, bounded onstage at the Golden Globes last month to accept the award for best actress for her role in the psychological thriller “Black Swan.”

The speech began awkwardly — with the requisite nods to the presenter, Jeff Bridges, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association — before she thanked her grandmother, her parents and, finally, Benjamin Millepied.

“Benjamin choreographed the film,” Ms. Portman told the audience. “You might remember him in the movie as the guy, when they ask, ‘Would you sleep with that girl?’ he’s like ‘No.’

“It’s not true,” she continued, as the camera cut to Mr. Millepied, a handsome 33-year-old ballet dancer in a black tuxedo and a wide grin. “He totally wants to sleep with me!” She let out the now-famous laugh — part chortle, part hee-haw — that became a YouTube sensation.

The real joke was not lost on the room or the 17 million viewers at home. Ms. Portman was not only engaged to Mr. Millepied, but as her dress did little to conceal, she was also four months pregnant.

For Mr. Millepied, a superstar in the insular world of ballet, the moment was his prime-time coming out. Already, he has been featured in glossy magazines like Details, which photographed him shirtless, hanging from a barre, in a profile last December that said he was about to “leap into the upper echelon of celebrity.” His rugged good looks and athletic frame were also featured in an advertising campaign for Club Monaco last fall and for the Gap 2010 holiday campaign.

But now, as Ms. Portman’s fiancé, Mr. Millepied has become tabloid fodder and is arguably the biggest danseur to cross over into pop culture since Mikhail Baryshnikov.

“Benjamin’s a triple threat,” said Coco Kopelman, the Chanel heiress who is on the board of the School of American Ballet. “He’s a very talented principal dancer. He’s an amazing choreographer and he happens to be very attractive.”

And, she added, “It doesn’t hurt that he has a French accent.”

MR. MILLEPIED is a busy guy these days. An agreement to be interviewed was weeks in the making. Even then he proved elusive, first sending an e-mail suggesting, “let’s do btw 3 and 7, tribeca.” Then, after the reporter wandered that neighborhood for hours on a frigid January afternoon waiting for some sign of Mr. Millepied, he excused his absence with an apologetic text. “So sorry,” the message read. “Something came up.”

To be fair, many things could have come up. Perhaps Mr. Millepied was stuck at rehearsals for “The Bartered Bride,” which he is choreographing for the Metropolitan Opera. Or maybe he was demonstrating a particularly complicated pas de deux for the as-yet-unnamed new ballet he is choreographing for the American Ballet Theater that will have its premiere next month.

Another interview was set for the next evening at 9:30. The appointed time came and went. A text arrived an hour later: “Sorry, now at dinner. I promise we speak tonight.” Friday night turned to Saturday morning. At half past midnight the phone rang. “I have time to chat now,” said a sleep-softened voice, “then I leave for Los Angeles.”

Such has been Mr. Millepied’s life for much of the last year and a half. In 2009, the director Darren Aronofsky was preparing to film “Black Swan” and needed a ballet insider, “someone who was deeply steeped in classical ballet,” Mr. Aronofsky said in a recent telephone interview. “Benjamin’s name came from two different people.” Mr. Millepied jumped at the chance not only to
choreograph, but also to be a ballet consultant to ensure the film’s verisimilitude.

Midway through filming, Mr. Millepied heard that a part had opened up to play Ms. Portman’s on-screen dance partner. It was only a few lines, including the now famous would-you-have-sex-with-her scene, but Mr. Millepied eagerly volunteered.

Photo courtesy of the New York Times

And thus began a romance fit not only for the ballet stage but also for the New York tabloids.

It’s been quite a journey. Mr. Millepied, whose fortuitous last name can be roughly interpreted as “thousand footed,” was born in the south of France (“in a small town outside of Bordeaux”), raised in Senegal (“African dance is part of my upbringing”) and is the son of a decathlete and a ballet teacher (“I’ve danced as soon as I could walk”).

Mr. Millepied arrived in New York in 1993 at age 16, with a scholarship to the School of American Ballet, the grooming academy for the New York City Ballet. His athleticism and musicality caught the eye of Jerome Robbins, who cast him in “Two- and Three-Part Inventions,” one of Mr. Robbins’s last works. He was showered with accolades. Anna Kisselgoff, who was then the dance critic for The New York Times, proclaimed Mr. Millepied’s long athletic solo “brilliant.”

Upon graduation from the school, he moved seamlessly into the New York City Ballet, where he rose from a member of the corps de ballet to soloist to principal dancer — all by age 24.

In 1998, Dance magazine anointed him one of five male ballet dancers to watch. He was also perceived as a protégé of Mr. Robbins’s — the choreographer had not only mentored the young dancer, but had also introduced him to his inner circle of patrons.

But his big break came in 2002, Mr. Millepied said, when he was given the chance by Peter Martins, the ballet master for the New York City Ballet, to choreograph. The piece, “Clapping Music,” was set to five minutes of rhythmic applause by the minimalist composer Steve Reich.

Other commissions soon followed. By the time he turned 31, Mr. Millepied had choreographed for many of the world’s marquee ballet companies: the Paris Opera, the American Ballet Theater, the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle and the New York City Ballet. He even choreographed a solo piece entitled “Years Later” for Mr. Baryshnikov in 2006, a symbolic passing of the torch.

And like Mr. Baryshnikov, who achieved wider fame after starring in the ballet films “Turning Point” and “White Nights,” Mr. Millepied would soon make another jump — this time to Hollywood.

And, of course, Natalie Portman.

Maybe it was all the hours of rehearsals, but Mr. Millepied and Ms. Portman soon began to date. “We fell in love dancing,” Ms. Portman said on Ellen DeGeneres’s show last month. “It’s very romantic to dance together.” (Notably, a younger Mr. Baryshnikov was also known for dating starlets like Liza Minnelli and Jessica Lange.) For months, the couple kept the office romance
to themselves. “I actually was one of the last to find out,” said Mr. Aronofsky, with a hint of amusement. Then around Christmas, as reports of Ms. Portman’s pregnancy and her engagement to Mr. Millepied hit the blogosphere, the actress released a statement to Entertainment Weekly. In it, she said she was “indescribably happy.”

NOT everyone in the ballet world is equally smitten. Though roles and commissions have come to Mr. Millepied with ease, some argue his greatest talent isn’t as a choreographer, but as a blue-eyed charmer able to raise money, court donors and attract audiences.

“I personally don’t like to schmooze,” said Adam Hendrickson, a soloist at the New York City Ballet, who is a choreographer himself. “But some people just have that gift. Benjamin is great at it.”

To be fair, charming patrons is an integral part of ballet, a genre that grew out of court cultures of 16th-century France and Italy. By the 19th century, the backstage of the Paris Opera was a “privileged venue for sexual assignation” between dancers and season ticket holders, wrote Judith Lynne Hanna, a dance historian, in her book, “Dance, Sex and Gender.”

Ballet still relies on patrons and foundations (ticket sales barely cover expenses), and wooing donors is an inevitable part of the profession. After all, Mr. Martins’s ability to hobnob with donors, particularly Ms. Bass, is often cited as a reason he eventually succeeded George Balanchine at the New York City Ballet (particularly in contrast with the famously ill-tempered Mr.
Robbins).

But some go further and cattily whisper that Mr. Millepied’s charisma makes up for his shortcomings as a choreographer, and is the real reason for his numerous commissions. For instance, when the Pacific Northwest Ballet tapped him to choreograph an original work in 2008, it did so knowing that the work would be underwritten by an endowment from the Joyce Theater, the Stephen and Cathy Weinroth Fund for New Works. It helped attendance, too; his piece “3 Movements”
received “both good reviews and a good audience roar,” said Peter Boal, the ballet’s artistic director. Even at New York City Ballet, where donations are usually given to a general fund, Mr. Millepied’s work is a fund-raising magnet. “There are specific donors that sponsor my work,” Mr. Millepied said. His pieces are among the most well-attended each season, said Robert Daniels, a company spokesman.

Others wonder whether Mr. Millepied has spread himself too thin across all the world’s stages. “We called him Benjamin A Million Gigs,” said Wendy Perron, editor in chief of Dance magazine. “He always seemed to be doing something.”

“Millepied’s work has been very spotty,” Ms. Perron added. “After 2009, he made a couple of good pieces, but recently he has done a couple of not very good pieces.”

The choreographers Christopher Wheeldon and Alexei Ratmansky, she said, are the “real golden boys.”
“But they’re busy, and if you want a world premiere,” she said, “you go down to the next tier, to Millepied.”

But Mr. Millepied isn’t without his many defenders. His critics, they say, are just envious of his success and high profile. “There’s always the fear of spreading oneself too thin, but Benjamin’s smart enough to know what he’s doing,” said Mr. Hendrickson, the City Ballet dancer.

Linda Shelton, executive director of the Joyce Theater, called Mr. Millepied “a very talented choreographer who works with extraordinary dancers and who is developing his voice as a major choreographer.” Even Ms. Perron is a fan. “He definitely has talent,” she said. “Some of his pieces, like ‘Quasi Una Fantasia,’ are really terrific.”

The final verdict on Mr. Millepied’s talents may be in the commissions. New pieces are also under way for the New York City Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet and the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Lyon Opera Ballet, the Paris Opera and the Ballet de Geneve have also commissioned new pieces, Mr. Millepied said.

His film career, meanwhile, continues to grow. In December, he was the leading man in a short film co-directed by Asa Mader and starring Léa Seydoux, called “Time Doesn’t Stand Still.” Mr. Mader called the film “a steppingstone for a feature.”

“I’m booked for the next three years,” Mr. Millepied said, not unhappily.

As for his newest and most public role, as Ms. Portman’s consort, Mr. Millepied is still getting used to celebrity. After attending the Golden Globe Awards, he was absent during the Screen Actors Guild awards last Sunday; there’s no word if he’ll take time from his schedule to attend the Oscars on Feb 27. His ballet “Plainspoken” is scheduled for the New York City Ballet the night before.

Otherwise, Mr. Millepied is reluctant to discuss his relationship with Ms. Portman. He is an artist, he maintained, not a celebrity. “I don’t Google myself so honestly why would I care?” he said. “What I want to do is my work. The rest is completely irrelevant.”

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Natalie Portman: Help Educate Girls in Kenya

Natalie Portman has teamed up with Free The Children to launch The Power of a Girl, an initiative to spread the word about educating girls in developing nations.

“With women comprising 70 percent of the world’s poor, investing in the education of girls is one of the best ways to end the cycle of poverty,” Nat said. “I’m thrilled to be working with Free The Children and excited to see the ways in which youth throughout North America and the U.K. will be able to help send girls to school in Kenya, bringing them one step closer to achieving their dreams.”

From now until May 1, young people aged 13-21 are encouraged to raise funds for Kisaruni, Free The Children’s new all-girls’ secondary school in Kenya. Finalists will be chosen in May and asked to share why they think it’s important to empower girls through education.

The winner will take home Natalie’s Rodarte dress from the AFI Fest premiere of Black Swan and the chance to travel to Kenya over the summer!

Natalie Portman is most desirable spouse

Natalie Portman has topped a poll to find Hollywood's most desirable wife - while Charlie Sheen has been named the least wanted husband.

The Black Swan actress saw off competition from Megan Fox, British singer Cheryl Cole and Prince William's bride-to-be, Kate Middleton, to be crowned the Most Desirable Celebrity Wife in a poll by U.K. planning service My OK! Wedding.

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Full lists

Screen Actors Guild Awards

• Natalie Portman wins Best Leading Actress for Black Swan
• Mila Kunis nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Black Swan, loses to Melissa Leo for The Fighter
• Black Swan cast (Portman, Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey) nominated for Best Ensemble Cast, loses to The King's Speech cast
• Portman, Kunis, and Ryder in attendance

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Director's Guild Awards

On Saturday night the Director's Guild Awards were held in Hollywood, California. The winner in the "Best Film" category was Tom Hooper for The King's Speech, one of Black Swan's biggest award competitors about King George VI of England and his fight against speech deficiency. Natalie Portman and Darren Aronofsky were both in attendance for the event. Portman was seen with Amy Adams, who was there to support The Fighter, another Best Picture Oscar nominee about the trials of Mickey Ward and his family.

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