Now that Natalie Portman has safely stored her shiney new Oscar on her mantlepiece for all to see, it’s time to let the starving, emaciated cat out of the bag we put it in in order to keep the damn thing from eating. It turns out Natalie Portman may not have done all her own dancing in Black Swan, and that it takes years of practice and training to become the accomplished ballerina necessary for the role. And now you know.
“We were fortunate to have Sarah there to cover the more complicated dance sequences and we have nothing but praise for the hard work she did. However, Natalie herself did most of the dancing featured in the final film,” the studio said. Lane came out firing against the popular belief that Portman had indeed done the dancing shown on film, telling Entertainment Weekly on Friday that it was all substitutes, movie magic and PR wizardry.
“They wanted to create this idea in people’s minds that Natalie was some kind of prodigy or so gifted in dance and really worked so hard to make herself a ballerina in a year and a half for the movie, basically because of the Oscar,” Lane told EW. “It is demeaning to the profession and not just to me. I’ve been doing this for 22 years … can you become a concert pianist in a year and a half, even if you’re a movie star?” SOURCE
Of course, chances are the body-double probably did a shitload of work, so let’s not say otherwise, but let’s face it here: I think Natalie won an award for acting by oh, I don’t know, actually fucking acting. It’s not like people sat around at home going “Yeah, sure, she can realistically portray a woman who’s rapidly dwindling sanity will eventually kill her. But can she pirouette? Oh good, I’m happy!”