Natalie Portman Says It Was 'Luck That I Was Not Harmed' as a Child Actor

Natalie Portman is reflecting on her time as a child actor.

During an episode of Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast, the Oscar winner, 42, told the outlet that it was “an accident of luck” she was not harmed as a young actress, adding that she would not advise kids to enter the industry.

"I would not encourage young people to go into this,” Portman, who shares two children — son Aleph, 12, and daughter Amalia, 6 — with husband Benjamin Millepied, told Variety, before clarifying: “I don’t mean ever; I mean as children.”

“I feel it was almost an accident of luck that I was not harmed, also combined with very overprotective, wonderful parents,” she added.

Portman, who made her big screen debut in Léon: The Professional at age 13, told Variety that “you don’t like it when you’re a kid, and you’re grateful for it when you’re an adult.”

“I’ve heard too many bad stories to think that any children should be part of it,” she said of kids in the entertainment industry. “Having said that, I know all the conversations that we’ve been having these past few years. It’s made people more aware and careful.”

“But ultimately, I don’t believe that kids should work,” she said. “I think kids should play and go to school.”

In May, Portman reflected on her role in Léon: The Professional, telling The Hollywood Reporter that she has "complicated" feelings about her 1994 breakout film. (Its director, Luc Besson, has since been accused and cleared of sexual misconduct by multiple women.)

In the thriller Léon, Oscar-winner starred as Mathilda, a young girl who strikes up a mentor-mentee relationship with a hitman (Jean Reno) after her family is murdered.

When asked about her feelings toward the film, Portman told THR, "It's a movie that's still beloved, and people come up to me about it more than almost anything I've ever made.”

“And it gave me my career,” she continued. “But it is definitely, when you watch it now, it definitely has some cringey, to say the least, aspects to it.”

"So, yes, it's complicated for me," she added.

Elsewhere in the interview, Portman told the outlet that the allegations against Besson, 64, were "devastating."

When the director was first accused of rape in 2018, his lawyer told THR, "Mr. Besson fell off his chair when he learned of these accusations, which he flatly denies."

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On her own experience working with Besson, she told THR, "I really didn't know. I was a kid working. I was a kid.”

"But I don't want to say anything that would invalidate anyone's experience,” she added.

When asked what advice she would offer kids who begin acting around the same age that she did, Portman told THR that she "always want[s] to tell [child actors] to treat it as a game more than a job because I don't think kids should really have jobs.”

In the same interview, she described her own early acting roles as “fun.”

“I definitely knew how to take things seriously as a kid, but I loved it," she said. "I really, really loved it.”