Natalie Portman Is Sick Of Movies About White Men

Natalie Portman's turn as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis already looks like a blockbuster. And why shouldn't it be? She has the rarest of star qualities: Not only does she look good in the hits, but she has the talent of walking away from the flaming wreckage of projects smelling like a rose. Shit, she was even good in The Phantom Menace. Now, she's proving that her Harvard pedigree and natural smarts haven't been dulled by her lifetime in the spotlight. Specifically, she says that Jackie reminded her of a better time: When Hollywood made movies about something other than white men. She tells New York that “have such strong female roles all the time.” Her examples are Sunset Boulevard and Marnie, both movies about women hurtling off the cliffs of sanity. “Even if they’ll make the occasional sexist comment, they still have a central woman character who has a personality," Portman tells the magazine. "Now I feel like movies are all about white men and then you get a couple that happen to be about women.” She certainly has a point, especially in the wake of 2016's #OscarsSoWhite controversy and, you know, that election thing. Jackie, in that way, promises to be a throwback. The film is a celebration of a woman whose public courage held together a nation that could have fallen apart in the wake of her husband's assassination. And Portman plays the role with aplomb, holding the audience with her as she does things like refusing to remove a suit stained with her husbands blood. That strength will serve her well in her next project: Playing a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg. No pressure, there.