Why Natalie Portman Changed Her Name & Created A Secret Identity

Natalie Portman is, without question, one of the most well-known and well-regarded actors working in Hollywood — and that's been true for several decades. As it turns out, there are two of her ... sort of.

Portman — alongside her "May December" co-star Charles Melton and a smattering of other actors, including Bradley Cooper, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Lily Gladstone, Greta Lee, and more — appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair's Hollywood 2024 issue, and she opened up about becoming famous at a young age. To keep her two lives private, she says that she often went by her original name whenever she wasn't performing.

"I got very protective of [my public image] very early on. I chose a different name when I started, which was kind of an interesting way that I separated identities," Portman said; before appearing in "The Professional" at 11 years old, she chose her grandmother's maiden name as her stage name, but she was born Natalie Hershlag.

"I would get upset if someone at school called me Natalie Portman," she continued. "I was like, if you know me, you know me as Natalie Hershlag at school. It was kind of an extreme bifurcation of identity that I've tried to integrate a little bit more as an adult."

Being famous certainly comes with its own unique set of challenges, and in this interview, Natalie Portman didn't shy away from addressing this. After "The Professional," Portman obviously continued acting, but she was so incredibly young that she had to find a way to protect herself from the world at large as her fame continued to grow. Still, in saying that she's trying to "integrate" those parts of herself now that she's no longer a child, she says she probably went a bit too far in "splitting" herself.

"I felt like it was not accepting that both were part of me, that there wasn't a 'real' me and a 'pretend' me, and that they didn't necessarily have different names," Portman said, referencing the extreme lengths she went to when she was younger — including changing her last name depending on the situation. "And it's not just two different versions, there are multitudes of ways other people see me, both public and private, and there are multitudes of ways I see myself." 

Luckily, it seems like Portman has gotten better and better at doing this as she's gotten older — only an extremely self-aware person could have parodied herself as effectively as she did on "Saturday Night Live" with the Lonely Island. But there's another factor that's helped Portman remain protective while understanding her multitudes.

As Natalie Portman put it, she has to understand every aspect of herself to make sense of being famous and being a mother. "Somehow the intersection of all of those are part of me, and it's important to have all of those within me and as me, as opposed to being like, that's some external thing, this is the real thing," she continued. 

Portman has two children with her husband, French dancer Benjamin Millipied (with whom she worked on the ballet film "Black Swan"), and she said that being an active parent is demanding enough that she needs to understand every single part of herself. "As I started having kids and a family, I started realizing that maybe it was not helpful to be like, there's two of me," she said. "I have many interactions during my day as a public person. To exclude that from my experience is not real."

Adding to that complication, interviewer Keziah Weir noted that, due to rumors of infidelity on Millipied's part, there's been a lot of unfortunate chatter about his and Portman's marriage as of late. She shut that line of questioning down very quickly — "It's terrible, and I have no desire to contribute to it" — but it just goes to show that as she's learned more and more about fame and how to protect herself, Portman is a master at diffusing difficult situations while keeping her cool.

It's a good thing that Natalie Portman knows how to protect her private life without completely splitting her identities anymore because she's still one of the biggest names in Hollywood ... and her career shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. 

After winning an Academy Award for her performance as prima ballerina Nina Sayers in Darren Aronofsky's 2010 thriller "Black Swan," the actor showed off her playful side in the 2011 romantic comedy "No Strings Attached" before joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe that same year as Jane Foster in "Thor." (She reprised the role in 2013's "Thor: The Dark World" and nearly left the franchise entirely before she was lured back in 2022 for "Thor: Love and Thunder.") She's also worked with trippy director Pablo Larraín on the off-kilter 2016 biopic "Jackie" and dipped her toe into science fiction with Alex Garland's 2018 thriller "Annihilation."

Lately, Portman has been making the rounds to promote "May December," the latest from director Todd Haynes that allows her to really delve into the difference between public and private personas. In the film, Portman plays an actor named Elizabeth Barry who's tasked with studying Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), a woman who groomed and abused a young boy, Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), whom she eventually marries. Portman's performance as Elizabeth is disturbing, dark, funny, and some of the most daring work she's ever done; perhaps her knowledge of her own multitudes helped her access the character.

"May December" is available to stream on Netflix now.