Natalie's Biography

Note--this is (rather obviously) in its very primitive state. Much, much more will be added--check back...

Her Beginning

Natalie was born in Jerusalem on June 9,1981 to an Israeli father and an American mother. She is an only child. She has expressed some disappointment in interviews that she has no brothers or sisters since she considers the relationship between siblings as "another form of friendship", but she also has recognized that if she had siblings, she could not have gotten into acting.

At the age of three, her family moved to Washington, DC. At four, she was taking dancing lessons and describes herself as "the youngest person in this modern dance troupe in Washington DC". At the age of seven the family moved to Connecticut and at age nine they moved to New York where they have lived ever since. To see pictures of a very young Natalie, click on this link: Young Natalie Pictures (A big thank you to Orac for allowing me to link to his America's Queen site for these and all the other pictures on this page).

When she was eight, she went to a medical conference with her father (a fertility specialist) which caused a significant change in her life. Six years later (at age 14), she described the experience in an interview: "My dad's a doctor, and when I was 8, I went to one of his medical conferences where they were demonstrating laser surgery on a chicken. I was so mad that a chicken had to die, I never ate meat again. And in sixth grade, we dissected a fish, and I got so sick that I never ate fish again."

To Model or To Act? Decisions...

At age 11 (some accounts say 10), she was spotted in a pizza parlor by a Revlon representative and was signed by the Wilhelmina Agency. She later told them she was not really interested in modeling, but in acting, and they arranged for her to get an acting agent. She later explained why she was "down on modeling" : "One year, a local dance supply company came to my dance class looking for girls to be in its catalog. I did it and I hated it. It was so boring!"

"I Was Jumping Off the Walls"

Her first "real job" (as described by her) was as an understudy in an off broadway play. In early 1993 she went to the first audition for The Professional (also known as Leon and The Cleaner), but was told by the casting director that she was too young. "So I went home," she said in an interview, "and I didn't feel bad about because, I mean, auditions are like that, if you're not right, I mean, what can you do?" Two weeks later they called her back, telling her the director wanted "younger". She returned and described the experience: "...I read for Luc, and I think it was one of the best auditions I did in my life. He said, 'See ya soon.' So I went home and I was like, 'I got it!' I was really excited; I was jumping off the walls." French director Luc Besson chose her from around 2,000 (by one report, anyway) girls who read for the part.

But it wasn't perfect. The script originally included a nude scene and other material to which she and her parents objected when they read the script (at Besson's request). Adjustments were made so that what Natalie finally did on camera was comfortable for her and her parents. She still found doing some of the "sexy" scenes hard because, she said, "I'm not that kind of person. I'm not the kind of person that would say 'He's my lover.' That was so hard for me, especially when everyone was standing around watching and my mom's there."

See pictures of Natalie from The Professional at this link: The Professional pictures .

Even the altered version which was used resulted in some criticism of her and her family that she had been in such a movie and speculation that she had been exploited. She disagreed. "I didn't feel exploited at all. I understood everything I was doing. It wasn't like some dirty old man was tricking me into something. The movie was simply about a little girl's crush on the first person who'd taken care of her."

She was also troubled by the reactions of some she had thought of as her friends. They treated her differently, apparently thinking she considered herself better than them because she had been in a movie.

But the performance was noticed. Ted Demme (who directed her in a later film) said "Natalie absolutely blew me out of my seat in The Professional, and after one reading of the script for Beautiful Girls, I knew she was the only actress who could play this character".

"You Could Tell She Was Kind of a Prodigy"

After a part in a short film called Developing, Natalie played a role in Heat with Al Pacino. Michael Mann, director of the film said "When I met her, you could tell she was kind of a prodigy. In the movie, she has a very short amount of screen time to believably communicate a child who is seriously dysfunctional without any overt hysteria or exaggerated dialogue, and she delivers. Only someone with serious talent can do that". You can see pictures of her from Developing here:Developing pictures and from Heat here Heat pictures

But, true to form, Natalie was not taking just anything. She turned down the lead in the Adrian Lyne remake of Lolita. She thought it was much too sexually explicit. "I met with the director," she said, "but I immediately told him there's no way I'm gonna do this movie...He told me they'd use body doubles but I said people will still think it's me, so no thank you".

"We were fortunate that Natalie just happened to be 13"

About 1994, Natalie was able to read for the part of Marty in the Ted Demme film Beautiful Girls. As can be seen from the quote above, he liked what she did immediately. The emotion was shared. Natalie said "When I got the script, I just fell in love with Marty. It's so rare to find a script where the character is my age, and smart and funny - and doesn't have sex". The movie's writer and producer, Scott Rosenberg, agreed. "We saw a lot of girls and nobody even came close. To me, she is Marty". He added in another interview "We always said that if we couldn't find the right little girl then there was no point in making the movie. We were fortunate that Natalie just happened to be 13 at the time we were making this movie, and almost the only one in the world who could play the part. She was almost like an alien who crash-landed a ship onto this small town and then moved on."

By all accounts, Natalie enjoyed filming Beautifus Girls. And the people she worked with were not only impressed by her, but became a little protective of her, sometimes rather humorously so. "When we were making Beautifus Girls they asked all these meteorologists where all the snow would be, because they wanted to look snowy." she says. "They all said, 'Go to Minnesota. They'll have six feet of snow the whole winter, it'll be great.' They said there'd be no snow in Massachusetts, where the story is supposed to take place. Of course, there was no snow in Minnesota and three feet in Massachusetts. We had to make our own. The crew got chunks of ice from a lake in Wisconsin and ground it into little snowflakes to be put on land. One day I ate some and everyone yelled at me. They were like, 'Eeew, that's from a lake.'"

In a later inveriew she said "I'm friends with people much older than me, but they're all quite intent on maintaining my innocence. Yesterday Ted Demme told me that if anyone ever did anything bad to me, I have 20 big brothers who'd rush to my rescue". They had the idea right, but the number, I would guess, is grossly understimated.

The critics, though giving the movie mixed reviews, had nothing but praise for Natalie. You can see pictures of her from the movie here: Beautiful Girl pictures

"Are you free for the fall?"

By now, she was well enough known that Woody Allen cast her (along with Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore, and Tim Roth) in Everyone Says I Love You (a musical) after only one meeting. Natalie said of the experience "I met him. I shook his hand. He said, 'Hi, I'm Woody,' and introduced me to the three people who were in the room. I said, 'Hey, I'm Natalie.' He asked me three questions, like, 'Where do you live? How old are you? Are you free for the fall?' "

To be continued...

Still to come...

"Star Wars? Whatever."

Sources:

Venice Magazine; July, 1995; Little Miss Professional; Angela-Mildred Sharp

Interview Magazine; February 1995; Ingrid Sischy

Los Angeles Times; February, 1996; Young and Restless, Kristin McKenna

Sassy; July, 1996; Interview

Entertainment Weekly; Jan, 1996; Beautiful Girl: Is Portman the Next Foster?; Tom Russo

The Daily Bruin; Jan, 1996; Lael Loewenstein

To return to the index, click here