interview - NATALIE PORTMAN
Natalie Portman takes you inside Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
By Earl Dittman
Natalie Portman was on the Berlin soundstage of the dark, futuristic political thriller V For Vendetta when she got a letter from Zach Helm explaining what he wanted to do with his directorial debut — a movie that could not be more different than V.
“It was so passionate and sweet, it really moved me,” the 26-year-old Portman recalls in a recent New York interview. “Basically, in the letter he said that he wanted to make a movie that was just as important to children as roller coasters, boxed apple juice and raisins are.
Then, when I read Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, I was like, ‘I want to do this!’”
Portman was already committed to make Goya’s Ghosts, Milos Forman’s quasi bio-pic of the legendary Spanish painter, before she could report to Mr. Magorium’s Toronto set. But Helm didn’t mind waiting. “He is a big fan of Milos Forman, so he was like, ‘I understand, I’d want to work with him, too,’” recalls Portman, still sporting her short hairdo.
“I just wanted to have fun and get lost in Zach’s fantasy world, because I get bored easily,” says the Jerusalem-born, Harvard-educated Portman with a smile. “I’m always trying to do different things, because I feel like if I can keep myself interested then there’s the hope of keeping an audience interested.”
The film co-stars Jason Bateman as the store’s accountant and Dustin
Hoffman as the zany Mr. Magorium. A few years ago Hoffman lobbied hard
for the role of Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but
lost out to Johnny Depp.
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Natalie Portman and Dustin Hoffman in
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium
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“I was so excited that we were all
going to be in the film together, especially Dustin because I knew he
was looking to play a character unlike any one he had done before,”
says Portman “We were going to be like kids let loose in a toy store.”
Portman plays Molly Mahoney, an employee of the most fantastic toy
store known to man. The Emporium is a magical world where the toys come
to life, but only to those who believe in the store’s miraculous powers
— which, initially, doesn’t include Molly.
Eventually, the store’s eccentric, 243-year-old owner,
Mr. Edward
Magorium (Hoffman), decides it’s time to find someone to take care of
his enchanted toy kingdom after he’s gone, and he wills the Emporium to
a shocked and bewildered Molly, who doubts her ability to manage the
store. Although Henry Weston (Bateman), the Emporium’s uptight and
conservative accountant, had expected to inherit the store, he starts
to warm up to Molly and becomes an unlikely supporter.
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“The set was so incredible, overflowing with toys, games and everything fun you can imagine, it was like we were in Mr. Magorium’s actual store, it was fantastic,” beams Portman, recalling the massive Toronto soundstage that housed the Emporium.
“It was wonderful to be back in a city that I love so much and knew so well,” she says. “When I was younger, my cousins used to live in Toronto, so my parents and I would drive out to visit them every year. We didn’t fly, we drove, and it was an adventurous 13-hour car ride from New York. I always had fun when we went, so being there brought back so many fond memories. Whenever I would have time off, I would explore every place I remembered in Toronto, and explore new places. I just wish we had more time there.”
Portman even ventured out to enjoy some of Toronto’s nightlife. “I always go out when I’m not working,” says Portman, who even praises Toronto’s paparazzi for their good-natured behaviour. Unlike many of her 20-something Hollywood contemporaries, Portman says she seldom has problems with the tabloids or the paparazzi — even in L.A.
“A lot of the people who get all the attention sometimes invite it themselves,” she says. “The way that I’m usually out of the public eye is that I go out and party with my friends who are not famous people, or we go to each other’s apartments, not the Hollywood clubs with movie stars. That’s not the group of people that I hang out with and do things with — nothing newsworthy. My friends are amazing people, but they are not tabloid fodder. So I think that it’s probably just not interesting to the press, and I also generally feel respected. I also have learned not to talk about my private life.” Over the years, Portman has been romantically linked to some of her male co-stars, but when it comes to discussing her beaus, she does indeed keep her lips sealed.
“College definitely helped my love life is all I’ll say,” she says of her years as a 4.0 student at Harvard. “Other than that, there’s not much to talk about. But I’m still young, so anything can happen. Plus, I don’t have to spend my summers beaming around the galaxy [anymore],” she says, referring to her years spent playing Queen Amidala for George Lucas. “I would be in school during the year and then during the summer break I would do Star Wars. So I definitely can do more now that I’m done with school and done with Star Wars, so you never know who or what I might meet.”
If you’re hoping to snag a date with the apparently available Portman, there is one attribute she says she finds particularly attractive.
“I really do admire other people, whether it’s a friend or a boyfriend, who are really engaged in trying to make the world a better place,” says the devout vegetarian and animal-rights activist. “There are too many people who are involved in themselves too much and aren’t looking out…. I don’t care for that type of person much because we have to make this world a better place for our children.”
Empathy and an awareness of the world around oneself are qualities that are evident in Portman as well. In fact, those qualities seem to inform her decisions about which roles to take, and even her choice to be in this profession at all.
“As an actor, my job is to imagine other people’s lives, and what a better thing to practice than that, to think about what other people experience,” she says.
Earl Dittman is a Houston-based entertainment writer.