'Eating Animals' producers Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer discuss veganism, farming and being pretentious

Natalie Portman hasn't eaten meat since she was 9. But it wasn't until she read Jonathan Safran Foer's "Eating Animals" in 2009 that she realized consuming dairy and eggs could harm animals too.

The book struck her so intensely that she instantly called up Foer and told him she thought the project would also work as a documentary. The writer and the actress had been friends for years, striking up a friendship after Portman - then a student at Harvard University - approached Foer after a Cambridge, Mass., book reading for his 2002 novel "Everything Is Illuminated."

It took nearly a decade for the documentary to come to fruition, along the way picking up financial backing from Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Ev Williams. Portman, now 37, eventually decided to serve as the film's narrator, while both she and Foer, 41,