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Only child "discovered"
Smart, funny men move her
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Queen of the universe
Smart girls scare guys. And Natalie Portman knows it. But if those Harvard boys aren't pursuing this straight-A junior, it's their loss. As the strong-willed royal of the current "Star Wars" trilogy, she has a whole cosmos of conquest to consider.

By Stephanie Mansfield

Natalie Portman, dining in a restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., is suddenly speechless. Her scarlet, pouty lower lip drops. Her brown eyes widen. She seems flustered, giddy. "Those are two of my professors," she says, smiling with the shameless adoration of a starlet who has just spotted Steven Spielberg at Le Dome. She introduces the distinguished-looking men ("he's the leading guy on memory"), who sit nearby.

The 20-year-old actress is a junior at Harvard, a straight-A student (she reportedly aced her SATs while appearing on Broadway in "The Diary of Anne Frank") who sprinkles her conversation with phrases such as "social Darwinism" and "interdependent sense of self" and knows more about Kant than Cannes. But she's cool enough in between exams to hang with her friend Moby, attend Britney Spears' birthday party and dye her hair bright "Run Lola Run" red for Halloween.

Straddling the line between celebrity and normalcy, no small feat for anyone, is even more daunting for adolescents. Rehab centers are littered with former juvenile actors. Heartbreak, unscrupulous agents and legal tussles with family members are footnotes to many a career. But if anyone can keep her wits, it's Portman, even as her face graces billboards for the latest "Star Wars" summer blockbuster, in which she reprises her role in 1999's "Phantom Menace" as Amidala.

Here, in her "bubble," as she calls it, Portman is just another highly accomplished, fiercely smart student who has a cellphone in her pocket, is multilingual (she speaks Hebrew, French and Japanese), likes to make lists, says she's "not good with boys," has Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" on her night table and says her favorite movie of last year was the sweet French farce "Amélie."

Her petite stature (she's just over 5 feet tall) and nubile, almost luminescent beauty give her a vulnerable quality. But Portman says the character who comes closest to her personality is the sullen, headstrong daughter of Susan Sarandon in "Anywhere but Here," for which she received a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress nomination. "I always felt relaxed with her," Sarandon says. "She's articulate, very centered and very smart. And she has a wicked sense of humor. I never thought of her as a kid. I thought of her as a partner."

"You should have checked me out when I was 13," Portman says, laughing. "I was locking myself in the bathroom, threatening to kill myself -- being so mean to my mom and fighting with her all the time. Girls are horrible. I hope I have boys."

In the new "Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones," Portman returns as the courageous Amidala. She'll also appear in the next episode of the space saga. (Photo LucasFilm)

Only child "discovered"
Portman, who was born in Jerusalem, is an only child. "They say 70% of [Harvard] students are only children or first children," she declares. Her Israeli father is a doctor specializing in fertility; her American mother is an artist. The family came to America when Portman was 3, living outside Washington, D.C., and in Connecticut, then settling on New York's Long Island. At 10, so the legend goes, Portman was sitting in a pizza parlor when a Revlon scout approached and asked if she might like to model. Quite boldly, she said she'd like to skip that part and go straight to acting.

Within months, she was signed to the Wilhelmina Agency and began making the casting rounds. She dropped her real name for privacy and took her grandmother's maiden name, making her film debut at 13 in 1994's "The Professional." In 1996, she was hailed as the seductive, mitten-wearing Marty in "Beautiful Girls," with Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon and Uma Thurman. Ted Demme, that picture's director, died in January, and Portman attended the funeral. "All the guys were saying, 'You still look 13!' I guess that's a compliment when you're 40, but when you're 20 you want to look 20." She takes a bite of her vegetarian dinner. "I'm certainly the first to get ID'd out of all my friends."

A psych major, she says she wouldn't want to be a psychologist but appreciates the science. "I've gone to a psychologist on and off. I sort of like it. But I think I'm better at having self-dialogue," she says. "I almost felt like they were doing the work for me. I actually went to a psychologist who had studied certain Jewish philosophy, so she would bring out a lot of messages, which were all really helpful. I felt as if I understood the wisdom and also the pride in the intelligence of my people."

That ties in with what Portman sees as the greatest challenge to her generation: "It's this classic sort of anti-intellectualism. The smart kid is the nerd. It's hard, because there's a worship of athletics and actors. People who are celebrities are not the intellects. Being a professor in Israel is the most important thing. If you say you're a professor, it's easier to get a reservation in a restaurant. The biggest problem for this generation is the notion that it's not cool to be smart. I think it's going to be a huge problem."

When George Lucas approached her to do "Star Wars," he wanted a 10-year commitment. She has one more film to do. "It was a hard decision to make, identifying yourself with a role that obviously, no matter what else I do, is what I'm going to be remembered for. On the other hand, it's cultural history and such an integral part of American film culture."

After working with Portman, Lucas says: "The thing that strikes you the most is her intelligence. I know she struggles with this idea that she's also become a glamour icon who in real life is a serious college student. She's smart enough to know there are a lot of options other than being an actor."

Actors Hayden Christensen, left, who plays Anakin Skywalker, and Natalie Portman.(Photo LucasFilm)

"Star Wars" and other fantasy films "are a set of fables that have moral underpinnings," Portman says. "It lets us be self-reflective without having to face ourselves. "Star Wars" teaches empathy. It extends your imagination. If it seems authentic, you'll be moved."

Smart, funny men
What moves her? Smart men. Funny men. Men like Mike Nichols, who directed her in last summer's New York stage production of "The Seagull," with Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep. "I adore him," she says. "He's so smart and interesting and emotional. He would cry during rehearsals. He really likes your input."

As for the battle of the brains among her peers, Portman says, "Smart women love smart men more than smart men love smart women." From personal experience, she says, "smart men still go for cute, dumb girls. A lot of guys I know here are brought up that way and want that in their lives. I hear a lot of guys say, 'I can't end up with a girl from Harvard, because none of them are going to want to stay home, cooking and doing that stuff.' A lot of them want that, because it affords them the privilege of having the career."

She says of her own future: "I wouldn't want my kids to grow up on movie sets. Being an actor is selfish, very 'me, me, me.' I'm ambitious, but not cutthroat." As for having the stomach for it, she adds, "I can't deal with failing more than I can't deal with this business."

The challenge, she says, is striking a balance -- making a meaningful contribution "and making a good life for yourself. Last year's class had 50% going into investment banking. You could get a job paying $100,000 the first year out of college. Now that there are no jobs in banking, it's making kids question what they want to do. More people are going to grad school. I know a lot of people who have decided to go into government instead of just following the path to make money." (Harvard says it doesn't track its graduates' career choices.)

Portman's money is tied up in investments, and yes, her parents paid her college tuition.

"I don't mind working hard for something if there are guarantees to get what you want," she says. "This business is not like medical school, where you go and study and if you're smart and do well, you get to be a doctor. You might go to Hollywood, be the most talented person and work [hard], and you might never get a part."

What four years of college will leave her with, she says, is something intangible, something no agent or Oscar could ever provide: "What is great is that I've been able to be brought up in this environment and have a strong sense of who I am and what I want, so when I leave my bubble I can create the kind of life I want and not be crippled by the evils around."

Cover: by Andrew Macpherson. Styling by Samantha McMillen; makeup by Jeanine Lobell for Stila @ Magnet; hair by Ray Allington for Real Hair London/Magnet. Tank top, Trina Turk; jeans, Juicy Jeans; jewelry, ME + RO.

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Music Why Moby matters
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