Natalie Portman is Jewish. She was born in Israel. Her father is Israeli and her mother is American. They moved to the U.S. when Natalie was three years old. Now Portman lives in Paris.
Portman directed the film A Tale of Love and Darkness, which debuted at Cannes in May. The film is set in Israel and is entirely in Hebrew.
In the past, Portman has also spoken out about the situation and events happening in her home country. Earlier this year, she criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I’m very much against Netanyahu. Against. I am very, very upset and disappointed that he was re-elected. I find his racist comments horrific. However, I don’t — what I want to make sure is, I don’t want to use my platform [the wrong way]. I feel like there’s some people who become prominent, and then it’s out in the foreign press. You know, shit on Israel. I do not. I don’t want to do that.”
Netanyahu should get a Nobel Prize for how he's getting the world to wake up to the occupation
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) July 6, 2015
Netanyahu is the most dangerous person in leadership on the face of this earth. Bibi's US msm sympathizers are putting us in grave danger.
— RanMan (@ranman09) July 1, 2015
Comments like these have resulted in her being asked lots of questions about foreign policy.
“I get asked so many questions about the Middle East,” she told Harper’s Bazaar recently, “and I’m like ‘Can you please just ask me about my dress? Let’s just talk about the dress!'”
“It’s a very strange place to be from,” she says of Israel. “If you say, ‘I’m from Sweden,’ everyone says, ‘Cool.’ When you say, ‘I’m from Israel!’ everyone wants to have a 10-hour political conversation. Everyone has a very strong, very passionate opinion about it. But I’m grateful for it. I had so many friends who asked, when we were younger, ‘Who am I? What’s my identity?’ I never questioned my identity.”
Natalie Portman wants to be asked about her clothes on the red carpet, not the Middle East. http://t.co/AasQwig2Eu
— Sara Yasin (@missyasin) July 10, 2015
