FINDING HER LIGHT

Natalie Portman is used to being watched. Sitting in a restaurant in East Hollywood, so small that there is no table that isn’t in full view of every other diner, she is the target of many not-very-subtle stares. She nods and smiles whenever anyone gawps too long. It’s not new. Despite being only 37, Portman’s been famous for 25 years, since she gave one of the all-time great child performances in Leon. People have always been looking.

It’s tempting to call an actor ‘normal’ if they act like a decent person rather than swanning in with an entourage and air of entitlement. As if managing to interact with regular people is some kind of achievement. In Portman’s case it kind of is an achievement. She shows no signs of having been distorted by a quarter-century of fame. She doesn’t have that manic, eager-to-please energy that a lot of former child stars, who have never known anonymity, have. She’s smart and engaged and cares about the same stuff as everyone else — politics, family, how nuts the world is. The weirdest thing about her is that for lunch she orders broccoli on toast, which is absolutely not a thing.

Portman’s new film, , is about what can go wrong when fame claims you very young; a nightmare vision of what she could have become. It’s the story of Celeste, a survivor of a horrific school shooting in Staten Island, who records a song in memory of her dead friends and is rocketed to instant celebrity. Portman plays the older Celeste, who has become a global music superstar and a total nightmare. She’s a horrible mother, emotionally broken and bored by her huge popularity. Trying to mount a comeback after a scandal, she does so against a backdrop of terror attacks committed by