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By Christina Radish
 Having achieved enormous success with The Matrix trilogy, the Wachowski brothers have written another thought-provoking, controversial screenplay, V for Vendetta, based on characters created by comic book legends Alan Moore and David Lloyd.
Set against the futuristic landscape of totalitarian
Britain
, V for Vendetta is the story of a mild-mannered young woman named Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman), who is rescued from a life-and-death situation by a masked vigilante known only as V (Hugo Weaving). Incomparably charismatic and ferociously skilled in the art of combat and deception, V urges his fellow citizens to rise up against tyranny and oppression. As Evey uncovers the truth about V’s mysterious background, she also discovers the truth about herself -- and emerges as his unlikely ally in the culmination of his plot to bring freedom and justice back to a society fraught with cruelty and corruption.
Academy Award nominee Natalie Portman was eager to take on the project because she was intrigued by the ambiguity of the film. “The script is very faithful to the graphic novel. Obviously, it has to condense a lot of the subplots to make it a film that you’re not going to lose the feeling in your legs while you’re sitting there watching. We have many variations of how we categorize violence. Was it intended, or not? Was it state sanctioned, or individually sanctioned? Sometimes, those categorizations are in the eye of the beholder, which is why some people watching this will identify with the government and some people will identify with the revolutionary.”
{quote_top}“We’re not telling you to think any one thing. We’re asking you to ask more questions and demand answers to questions that it seems there are no answers to. It’s not the story of a good hero and a bad establishment that he’s fighting. It’s more about shifting perspectives, and complicated characters in complicated situations, which I think is interesting and challenging for a viewer.”
Open for less than a week, V for Vendetta is already sparking conversations among its viewers, which is quite obviously the film’s true intention. “It’s made me think a lot of how we have thresholds of what we would allow to justify violence,” says the 24-year-old only child of a doctor father and an artist mother. “I think most people would say they would commit violence to save their child. What if a leader of a country sees all the people in his country as his children, and commits violence on their behalf to protect them? You can understand that everyone has their own limit to what would cause them to be violent. It changed my opinion about violence.”
 When Portman was cast as the young woman who joins V’s fight to reclaim freedom for the people, she immediately had to face the fact that she would have to shave her own head for the role. “The first time that I met Larry Wachowski and James McTeigue (the film’s director), they asked me if I would shave my head, and I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ Everyone else made a bigger deal about it than it felt to me. It was emotional for me, but that came more from people seeing me and reacting. For the first time in my life, I actually felt non-threatening because I felt like a really small girl.”
Another thing that Portman needed to do for her character was learn how to speak with a believable British accent. “I worked with a dialect coach for about a month and a half before we started shooting, and she was listening the whole time. We would do exercises every morning before I started, so I was pretty comfortable with it by the time we shot. But, it definitely was an extra thing to think about.”
Along with the character nuances, Portman admits to having done extensive research on this particular role. “I read a lot and I watched documentaries that I thought were related to it. I read a book that the Wachowski brothers recommended, called Faith in Treason, and also Macbeth, as well as a lot of other stuff that was very helpful to me, in seeing how people got into violent modes and justify violence for political purposes. I also read Prime Minister Menachm Begin’s autobiography because she was someone who clearly went into what some people call terrorist activities.”
{quote_middle}“Plus, working from a graphic novel, you have images and words that are incredibly rich to draw from. And, I was inspired by the illustrations of how she would move, and her facial expressions. All of that was really helpful.”
Prior to V for Vendetta, McTeigue worked for years as the first assistant director on The Matrix trilogy. So, he already had an established relationship with the Wachowski brothers when he signed on to helm the project.
“The Wachowski brothers are amazing. They are really brilliant, focused, kind people who really let James do what he wanted,” says Portman, of the first-time feature director. “They gave him a chance to create his own vision and do his own work. They were just helping with ideas, as writers, producers and second unit directors.”
Originally discovered by an agent in a pizza parlor at the age of 11, the trained ballet, jazz and tap dancer made her powerful film debut in The Professional, a controversial film about a professional assassin who reluctantly takes care of a 12-year-old girl whose parents are killed, and whom he teaches his trade. The Jerusalem born Portman went on to portray memorable characters in such films as Cold Mountain, Garden State, Closer and Star Wars: Episode I, II and III.
 When asked what her favorite has been among them, Portman replies, “I’ve loved them all. I wouldn’t say there is a favorite because each one was a chance to do something new. I don’t think I would ever want to go back and play any of them again because it’s such an experience in your life. For Star Wars, I got to play Amidala at three different ages, so that made it a little different. I’ve heard people refer to the characters they play as their child, which makes them unable to pick favorites, and I think that’s accurate.”
With such a varied career, Portman is quite picky about the roles that she does take on, and only likes getting involved with projects that intrigue her, in some way. “I don’t see many movies that I find interesting at all, for women or men. In terms of the stuff that I do, I have been able to find projects that I’m interested in and, when I don’t, I like not working. Not working is pretty fun. And, if you can’t find an interesting film, you can do something else that’s interesting. It doesn’t have to be a movie. There’s plenty to do that’s interesting that’s not movies.”
{quote_bottom}For Portman, one of the things that she’s most passionate about, outside of her career, is music. “I definitely like music a lot,” says the strict vegetarian. “I would travel far to see a band that I liked, if I had the time and cash to do it.”
Portman, who is fluent in five languages (English, Hebrew, French, German and Japanese), also believes that it’s important to spend time with an amazing group of friends that have been there for her throughout the years. “They help give me an idea of what people are like outside of the bubble I live in. I feel like I have a place to go to with people I love, and who I am fascinated by and hope to be learning from, the rest of my life. They tell me the truth. They tell me when I’m being annoying. They do not kiss up to me.” |
