Natalie Portman must be the superstar of Comic Con. She’s got the Star Wars fans, the general crush of any male filmgoer, and now she’s in Thor. She’ll play Jane Foster and she came to Comic Con to show the audience in Hall H some early footage. Afterwards, she joined the press for some interviews.
Q: Natalie, how does Thor compare to the other big movies you’ve done?
Natalie Portman: It was actually a very different experience than those because we were on earth, our section of the film was on earth, there’s very little blue screen work that we did. Also, Ken is such an incredible actor and director for actors that it was a very different experience too, just having someone give such attention to character and performance on a movie of this scale.
Q: Had you been to Comic Con before?
Natalie Portman: Yeah, for V for Vendetta and Star Wars in the same year, so this is my second.
Q: Do they just love you here?
Natalie Portman: Everyone’s always very, very kind. It’s great to be in such a passionate group of people who just love film.
Q: Female parts are usually the lone wolf in superhero movies. Was it nice to have Kat Dennings with you in the movie?
Natalie Portman: Yeah, Kat and I knew each other before the film and were good friends before, so it was great to get to play and laugh throughout. Stellan Skarsgard was the third. We were like a little trio but he was constantly like these two giggling girls and was always rolling his eyeballs.
Q: Jane Foster is often the bridge between Thor and earth in the comics. Is her role in the film similar to that?
Natalie Portman: Yeah, I think definitely that is part of her role in the movie. It sort of grounds him. He’s exiled to earth to learn humility. I think her earthiness is part of hopefully what transforms him. There are definitely changes in the character from the comic books but that is certainly one of the things that has stayed. She has some family things that echo Thor’s familial situation so that there’s that sort of bond between them. Obviously they have a common quest because he’s trying to get back home and her whole interest of study is these connections between dimensions.
Q: What was Kenneth’s direction like?
Natalie Portman: He’s an absolute master. The attention he gives to character on a movie of this size is absolutely remarkable because it’s very easy to get lost in needing to do special effects, cover all of this action. People forget often characters so never for one second did he let that go, always, always, always. I can’t imagine how exhausting it must have been at the end of the day. The pressure and stress of something like this film, you’d never see that with a director, just being always wholly energetic and always positive. You just wanted to go to set in the morning. He would like entertain us. Between scenes he would tell us funny stories and interesting tidbits and anecdotes. We’d always learn something on set. It was fun watching him behind the monitor too because he sort of goes through it with the character. He sort of acts with it unconsciously so he’ll be behind the monitor and he’ll be like [gesticulating] doing all this.
Q: Did Kenneth get you to prepare any specific way?
Natalie Portman: I was thinking more about when we had rehearsal where they used chairs. Very high tech rehearsal for a jillion dollar budget but they used chairs to build different spaces, like these kinds of chairs in an empty room. Then we would have to do the scenes and act around the chairs as if they were like buildings or cars. We had to sit in a car and pretend we were driving.
Q: They didn’t give you Thor comics to read?
Natalie Portman: Well, we definitely got lots of Thor comics and Ken gave me a lot of books on female scientists and their experiences which is really interesting.
Q: What’s the biggest challenge of stepping into something with a comic book fan base?
Natalie Portman: Well, one of the interesting things about the comic books is that they were written over several decades with several different writers and artists so there’s very different stories, very different tones, very different artwork, very different places the characters go and depictions of the characters. The challenge, more for the writers than for us even, but for the writers and for Ken as the director, is finding one tone, choosing which of the stories to tell because obviously all of these are sagas that have gone on for decades and whether to include certain characters or add others, which details to keep and which details to spare.
Q: How long does it take for Jane to figure out Thor’s character?
Natalie Portman: Well, I don’t want to give anything away but yes, there is a period where they’re just like, “This guy’s a weird alien. Why is he acting that way?” It was definitely a fun aspect to play sort of the ability to believe in things that are unbelievable.
Q: Talk about Chris Hemsworth.
Natalie Portman: Well, I will just gush now. Chris is a fantastic actor, has a very quiet confidence. He’s not showy or show-offy in any way but is able to walk into a room with Ken Branagh and act his pants off and not be intimidated, and is able to shoulder this responsibility of taking on this huge character with incredible grace and is firmly implanted on the ground, is so kind, just decent human being. Universally nice to everyone, genuinely nice, very funny. I have no doubt that he’ll be a massive star. He’s just very talented and a very, very good person.
