Black Swan FINAL V2-intl - Central-Kino
Black Swan FINAL V2-intl - Central-Kino
Black Swan FINAL V2-intl - Central-Kino
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“Very soon after I first started thinking of the idea for BLACK SWAN, I met with Natalie for coffee in Times<br />
Square,” he recalls. “She had done a lot of ballet before she became an actress and had continued doing it over<br />
the years just to stay in shape. She told me straight away that one of the things she’d always wanted to do was<br />
play a dancer.”<br />
Though it would take almost ten years after their meeting before the BLACK SWAN screenplay was<br />
finished, when Portman read it, she was riveted by Nina’s twisting psychological journey.<br />
Nina starts out as what the ballet world calls a “bunhead,” a not-so-endearing term for a ballerina so<br />
devoted to dance that nothing else matters, who is sheltered by her equally driven, former-dancer mother and<br />
who never really developed an adult life of her own. But when she gets the role of the <strong>Swan</strong> Queen, it awakens<br />
something new in her, a need to explore her deepest, darkest feelings which begin to unhinge the fragile edges<br />
of her mind. Nina, like the <strong>Swan</strong> Queen she wants to embody, suddenly becomes embroiled in a story of<br />
enchantment, desire and danger.<br />
This pushed Portman to edges that she had never before explored on screen – and required her to peer<br />
into the abyss. “Nina is dedicated, hardworking but also obsessive,” the actress explains. “She doesn’t yet have<br />
her own voice as a dancer, as a young woman, but she progressively changes as she searches to find her<br />
sensuality and sense of freedom. At the same time, she also starts to come undone, and that was the challenge. “<br />
She continues: “What Nina wants is perfection, which is something that can only exist for a moment, a<br />
brief, fleeting moment -- but like all artists, she may have to destroy herself to find that. When she tries to<br />
become the <strong>Black</strong> <strong>Swan</strong>, something dark starts to bubble inside her. It becomes an identity crisis where she’s<br />
not only unsure of who she is but the lines become blurred between her and other people. She starts literally<br />
seeing herself everywhere.”<br />
Trapped in this dizzying world of doubles and deceptive appearances, of mysterious encounters and<br />
erupting wounds, Nina begins to lose control -- and Portman had to do so, also.<br />
“As Nina begins to rebel against all the structures around her,” she notes, “it comes with all this<br />
paranoia that takes her to a dark place, where she isn’t sure what other people want from her and whether or not<br />
she’s losing her mind.”<br />
Amidst the darkness, Portman was thrilled to have a chance to immerse herself in the ballet world she,<br />
like Nina, dreamed about as a young girl. “I loved the authenticity of all these very real dance world details in<br />
the screenplay,” she says, “and I especially loved how Nina’s story parallels ‘<strong>Swan</strong> Lake.’ I saw her as<br />
someone really trying to break free of a spell – trying to break free of everyone else defining who she is and<br />
trying to see through all of it who she really is as a person and an artist.”<br />
And yet, as Nina begins to lose the thread of reality, she cannot let anyone know what she’s going<br />
through, lest she lose the role of the <strong>Swan</strong> Queen to her most threatening rival, the sensuous, shameless Lily --<br />
who becomes Nina’s alternate, both literally and figuratively.<br />
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