Natalie Portman talks about her career-defining role in Black Swan

Set in the cut-throat world of professional ballet, it stars Natalie Portman as ambitious ballerina Nina Sayers, descending into madness as she grapples with learning the dual role of Odette and Odile (the white and black swans in Swan Lake).

It's proving to be a career-defining role for the Israeli-American, having already bagged a Golden Globe for Best Actress and nominated for a BAFTA. An Oscar nod is now also very likely.

Fresh-faced and impossibly beautiful, Portman spoke about the film to a packed room of hacks about the role's extreme physical demands, getting in touch with her own dark side and working with her iconic co-star Winona Ryder.

Matthew Jenkin reports from the press conference.

It was interesting to read that writer Andres Heinz’s original idea for the film was to set it in the world of the theatre.

Why was the ballet backdrop was thought to be better suited for this very dark, psychological thriller – a tale of identity crisis and ambition?

Natalie Portman: I actually never read the theatre version of the script.

Darren (Aronofsky) spoke to me about the idea 10 years ago when I was still in college and he already mentioned it to me as a story set in the ballet world, which was really exciting to me as it is a world that always really appealed to me as this expression without words.

I think the ballet world is really fitting for this film because it’s a particularly female art form which is still dominated by men.

I thought that was really interesting – to represent the larger world of women where one woman gets too old or out of shape and there’s a younger woman who is going to be slipped right into her place.

There’s a sort of male structure and for a woman to find out how she can be an artist in that structure or having to leave that structure was really interesting for the role.

Your character strives for perfection. Can you relate to that on some level? Are you a perfectionist?

NP: I’m very demanding of myself. I’m not self-punishing. I never think I have done enough, I always think I can do more, but I don’t like being hungry or in pain or tired.

For this character I went into that sort of self-punishing mode and didn’t sleep, didn’t eat and worked out all day through injuries for three months, but sort of because I was living in that character. On my own I am a pleasure seeker.

How did you prepare for the physical part of the role?

NP: I started training a year before the film and worked with a ballet teacher who was a New York City ballet dancer for 10 years.

So we were doing five hours a day of training. It was three hours of ballet, then we would swim a mile and tone for two hours.

Then closer to the shooting, about two months before, we started working with a choreographer called Benjamin Millepied and various ballet coaches.

Many of them were there throughout the filming to give me notes.

You must have had an even greater in-depth knowledge after all that work...

NP: Absolutely, because you really understand the discipline, the rigour, the willingness to work through physical pain and also spending five hours a day with a former New York City ballet dancer for a year gave me a lot of stories.

You really go through everything and that was really helpful in building a very detailed back story for this world.

Can you tell us something about Aronofsky’s approach to directing and did he push you as hard as the character of Leroy (Nina's artistic director) pushes you in the film?

NP: Darren is a really exacting director. He’s phenomenal. It was really wonderful to get to watch him work because we were the only ones who were really there every day.

I got to see him work with the different actors who came in and out and see how he tailored his approach with every actor. It was incredible to see.

We had early recognition that we were equally military about our approach to work. We’re both really focused and disciplined and alert. There was a really quick connection between us, almost telepathic.

There has been a certain amount of controversy in the States from people in the ballet world to the film’s depiction of life in a ballet company.

What is your reaction to those critics and do you think the film is a fair portrayal of the industry?

NP: First of all, we have had a lot of really wonderful responses from a lot of ballet dancers, verifying the details of a lot of the film.

Clearly this depicts one particular dancer’s story in one particular fictional company so it’s not meant to be taken as truth for every company or every dancer.

It’s not even trying to be one real person’s story – it’s fiction.

However, a lot of the details are mined from true stories. I read autobiographies of many dancers from the Balanchine era at the New York City Ballet, which is where I got a lot of my ideas from.

There’s some stuff that people might not want to believe is true but a lot of it is deeply, darkly true.

Nina really wants this role, by God she would kill for it. In an ideal world, is there any role which you would really want to grab with both hands?

NP: I don’t know if I would kill for a role, as you put it. I don’t anything is quite that important.

But, yes, of course there are things which you really feel are right. This film is an example of a role that I was very honoured to have the opportunity to do and I was excited to have the chance of challenging myself in this way.

There’s a lot of buzz surrounding the film. How do you get your head around that?

NP: It’s obviously very flattering, especially to be named in the company of the actors and films which are being recognised this year.

It’s exciting to be in a film which people like in a year of good films.

At the same time, the real rewarding thing, apart from the work itself, is the audience reaction which has been so overwhelming.

It’s really exciting to hear people debating their different takes on what the movie is about and what’s real and what’s not. Just to see people engaging so passionately is your greatest dream when you’re making a movie.

Considering how long this film was in the making, and taking into account how acutely focussed the ballet world is in terms of age and growing older, if you had taken this role eight years ago, would it have been a very different film for you and do you think you needed that extra time to decide if it was a role which would fit you?

NP: That is exactly right. I think having the experiences of my 20s when I did the film was an absolute asset because of what I was talking about before, going from this childlike state of wanting to please people as a child actress, where you just want to make everyone happy. As a child actor you’re always looking for approval.

To get to a point where you’re really trying to make yourself happy and trying to fulfil yourself through your performance is a whole new experience and I really gained that in my late 20s and it gave me a perspective that really helped with the film.

But it also made the earlier parts of the film where she’s young and insecure and naïve and trying to please everyone, all the more difficult because it felt like a regression of sorts.

Do you think there is any sort of parallel between the pressures of the ballet world and Hollywood in terms of competition for roles and the pressure to look good? And also how did you cope with the emotional demands of the role?

NP: I think there are similar pressures, particularly with that sort of replacement, that there is an age limit.

I think with film and theatre it’s a little bit more flexible for actresses. You can change the type of roles you do, from being a leading lady to a character actress.

Whereas for dancers your career is just sort of over after a certain point.

Also there is more material reward for what we do than for dancers. Theirs is truly an art of passion. No-one is becoming rich and famous from being a ballet dancer any more. There’s something incredibly beautiful about that as well.

Regarding the second part of your question, it was really tricky. The trickiest part was balancing the physical with the emotional because sometimes just to do a certain move you need so much concentration.

My mouth would be hanging open and you’d have that concentration face which was all furrowed. Half the time they were just trying to get me to not have my tongue sticking out.

Then to add on to that, I also had to be acting in those scenes. Often times those demands are quite contrary to one another. You need to be really confident to do your turns and you need to be insecure in the scene. Having to do those at the same time was probably the most challenging.

It was about constant attention and there was no break in the day. As soon as we would finish a shot I would be warming up physically, getting ready for the next thing. It was physically good to keep that level of alert going throughout.

What have learnt about yourself from playing such a dark psychological role?

NP: I suppose I learned how much I could do. Because I think of myself as someone who seeks pleasure and doesn’t like pain, to actually put myself through pain for that long, and not just make myself feel good, was a scary thing to discover but also good to know I could focus in that way for a role.

But yes, it is frightening to know you can deprive yourself in that way.

And did you surprise yourself?

NP: Yes, absolutely. I don’t think I expected how hard it was going to be and I feel lucky I didn’t expect it because I went in with all this enthusiasm and excitement about getting to do ballet and it really propelled me through those difficult moments.

I’m not sure that would have been possible had I expected the hardship.

It is a very disturbing film and I would like to know how it felt for you personally to dig into Nina’s dark side and which of the two swans do you think resembles you the most?

NP: It was challenging. I like to shut off the character as soon as I have finished, whether it’s finishing a take or going home for the day after work.

I like to shut off and it was really difficult on this one, probably because I had so much training outside of work to do, that when work was done I had to go to the gym and wake up at 5am before work and work out and it was constant throughout the day and there wasn’t really any time to just relax and be myself.

Regarding the second part of your question, I think everyone is a little bit of both swans. I don’t think anyone is all white or black. I think we’ve all got that purity and impurity battling inside of us.

Talk us through the injuries you sustained during the movie?

NP: There were constant foot things and strained muscles. The worst thing was a dislocated rib which happened during a lift. That’s when one rib goes under another rib and it sort of feels like a stitch.

It happened in the middle of shooting the film and for the second half of the film I couldn’t really take a deep breath.

But they just changed the lifts from then on so they would be under my armpits instead of around my rib cage.

It’s also good to understand what real dancers go through because they’re constantly dancing through very difficult injuries.

It often happens right when they get promoted because they’ll work really, really hard to get promoted and then when they do, they’ll have bad injuries because they have worked so hard.

They don’t want to give up their spot because they don’t want to be replaced so they will just dance with a sprained ankle or a torn plantar fascia, some really extreme thing which would have most people benched.

But really they’ll just dance beautifully on stage then limp off into a bucket of ice. It’s pretty shocking.

Being an actress, can you relate or emphasise with your character’s struggle to distinguish between fact and fiction as she becomes so absorbed with her character in her performance.

NP: Like I was saying before, I really try and distinguish pretty clearly between what’s real and what’s not.

There are always little strands of your character that you don’t even realise are in you that linger afterwards.

I think because you have to internalise so much of what your character is going through in the way they think, in the way they see the world and the way they see themselves, it goes into your brain and body in ways you don’t really understand until months later.

This one was much harder to shake thean most because it was so all-consuming.

What was Winona Ryder like to work with? Was she someone who you looked up to?

NP: Absolutely, I think I have probably watched her more than any other actress.

If you think about how many great movies she’s made in the lead role, I don’t think there’s any actress you can compare her to.

She was in Mermaids and Heathers, Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, Reality Bites and Dracula and Age of Innocence, Little Women.

I mean, it’s crazy when you think about it. Most actresses have one of those movies. She’s really an icon and it was really exciting to get to work with her and she was amazing.

She was kind and professional and patient. A few of the days she had to wait around a long time and she was completely humble and just wonderful.

She was able to turn on that extreme emotion so quickly. It was really an honour to get to watch her and I hope I get another chance.

Black Swan (15) is out on Friday.