Natalie Portman's Black Swan Body Double Wants Her Due

regarding dues being given

I enjoyed the film but the dancing is what truly sucked me in. I feel Sarah Lane should have been promoted and spoken highly of...not just a side comment. I agree that Natalie's acting was well done but the movie was based on competitive dancing to earn a coveted role and this is why the actual dancer should have been shown and given her dues. Dancers spend years honing their craft just like actors due but unlike actors their careers can be short lived due to age and injury. Sarah has every right to want to set the record straight. Its a travesty to think that an actress can submerge herself for a year in a half into ballet training and hope the world is so ignorant they would believe that she is just that good. As a dancer this does appear offensive to me. The dancers that commit their lives to achieve perfection in their craft deserve to be recognized just like any talent. Hollywood needs to learn that the movie may be a journey into the imagination but when the credits roll you better acknowledge all the people and artists that made your vision a reality.

Much ado about not very much

Natalie never misrepresented herself as doing all the dancing, she was quoted everywhere saying otherwise: "Yes, yes, I was en pointe for - I mean, there's no way, obviously, I could have learned, you know, fouette turns en pointe for the film. That's something that takes a lifetime to perfect.
So there's a wonderful dancer, Sarah Lane, who did the more complicated pointe work. But I did the stuff that was possible to learn in a year."
http://www.wbur.org/npr/131667596/to-become-a-black-swan-portman-had-to-go-dark

And I've yet to hear Ms. Lane cite a single instance of anyone on the film claiming Natalie did not have help. Any non-idiot moviegoer knows there was a double. Ms. Lane seems to be in an uproar mainly because some of the lowest common denominator doesn't understand the concepts of stand-ins and special effects. But Academy voters are familiar with these things. Her only real claim is that they told her not to be interviewed, but she wasn't just taking issue with the amount of dance she did she was bashing Natalie at the same time. (I'd be interested in knowing if she happens to be friends with Millepied's ex GF who apparently got dumped for Natalie). And of course it's not substantiated that she was told to zip it, we just have to take her word for it. Smarmy, sure, but normal Hollywood. She also doesn't appear to be intelligent enough to have negotiated the credit she wanted when she did her contract. Can't cry about that after the fact, all that is A Very Big Deal in H-wood and if you do not assert what you demand, guess what? They're not going to hand it out to you. A double is always low on the totem pole, it's a very hierarchical system IME. Not a place for passive aggressive ninnies with chips on their shoulders. You could see in earlier interviews that she didn't get the concept of being a double. She also expressed an interest in, wait for it...acting! This one is very transparent, and needs to get over herself.

I agree with the body double

QUOTE: says that Black Swan producer Air Handel told her not to talk to the press about how much work she did in the movie, though her contract did not include a "gag" clause.

How is that right? As if Natalie isn't a "prodigy" at everything else under the sun, why try to make her seem like an Uber Ballerina by suppressing the body double's right to speak about how much work she did?
I thought it was amusing when Colin Firth said... "20 years ago...when I was a child sensation," and people laughed at his joke. Almost as if it were a jab at Natalie. Natalie seems so full of herself, oh I've been doing this since I was 11. Big deal, there are tonnes of gifted child actors.

Black Swan Body Double Wants Her Dues???

Okay...couple things to this body double:
1) You're a body double. If you wanted more credit for the movie you should have auditioned for the role, not to be the body double.
2) Natalie Portman, as I understand it, won the Oscar, not for the "dancing" but for her portrayal of the emotional turmoil of a totally psychopathic ballerina. And let me tell you something...she won that Oscar fair and square. The Academy looks for an actor to go out of their comfort zone in a portrayal. Natalie Portman is always so cute and sweet...even in V she was cute and sweet. And then you go watch The Black Swan and you go, "Where's my Natalie??? She's been replaced by this crazy scary b****." And it makes you uncomfortable to watch it. And THAT, my friends, is why Natalie Portman won the Oscar. Because she's NOT the sort of actress who typically makes you uncomfortable. She's the actress you makes you feel warm and fuzzy. And she went from that to crazy friggin scary in this movie. And you feel it. You feel every moment of it. She was amazing.
3) Back to the body double thing. Nobody thought it was Natalie Portman dancing. And if they did, they're just silly. Of course, if you know anything about actors and acting, you would know that Natalie Portman could not have become a ballet dancer in 1 year and been like a prima ballerina which it would take to do what was achieved in the film. Though...to be honest...I wasn't incredibly impressed with the dancing anyway. I have seen far better ballet dancing. And for what Portman did learn in a year, I think she learned quite a bit. Same goes for Mila Kunis.

I just think the body double needs to give it a rest. She's a body double...and I think she really is jealous of Portman's success or she'd just be glad she was used at all.

And to be frank and forthright, I hope the body double doesn't EVER expect to be used again. Because after acting like a prima donna about this, nobody will want to use her ever again.

• Life of a dancer

  Sammy | 03.29.11 04:42:33 PM

  You must really have no clue about dancing.

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