English Speech Natalie Portman Im Still Insecure
hello class of 2015 I am so honored to
be here today
Dean Khurana faculty parents and most
especially graduating students thank you
so much for inviting me the senior class
committee it’s genuinely one of the most
exciting things I’ve ever been asked to
do I have to admit primarily because I
can’t deny it as it was leaked in the
WikiLeaks release of the Sony hack that
when I was invited I replied and I
directly quote my own email wow this is
so nice
I’m gonna need some funny ghost writers
any ideas
this initial response now blessedly
public was from the knowledge that at my
class day we were lucky enough to have
Will Ferrell as class day speaker and
that many of us hungover or even freshly
hi mainly wanted to laugh so I have to
admit that today even 12 years after
graduation I’m still insecure about my
unworthiness
I have to remind myself today you are
here for a reason today I feel much like
I did when I came to Harvard Yard as a
freshman in 1999 when you guys were two
my continued shock and horror still in
kindergarten I felt like there had been
some mistake that I wasn’t smart enough
to be in this company and that every
time I opened my mouth I would have to
prove I wasn’t just a dumb actress
should I start with an apology this
won’t be very funny I’m not a comedian
and I didn’t get a ghostwriter but I am
here to tell you today Harvard is giving
you all diplomas tomorrow you are here
for a reason sometimes your insecurities
and your inexperience
may lead you to to embrace other
people’s expectations standards or
values but you can harness that
inexperience to carve out your own path
one that is free of the burden of
knowing how things are supposed to be a
path that is defined by its own
particular set of reasons the other day
I went to an amusement park with my
soon-to-be
four-year-old son and I watched him play
arcade games he was incredibly focused
throwing his ball at the target Jewish
mother that I am i skipped 20 steps and
was already imagining him as a major
league player with what is his aim and
his arm and his concentration but then I
realized that when he won he was playing
to trade in his tickets for the crappy
plastic toys the prize was much more
exciting than the game to get it I of
course wanted to urge him to take joy
and the challenge of the game the
improvement upon practice the
satisfaction of doing something well and
even feeling the accomplishment when
achieving the game’s goals but all of
these aspects were shaded by the little
10 cent plastic men with sticky stretchy
blue arms that adhere to the walls that
that was the prize in a child’s nature
we see many of our own innate tendencies
I saw myself in him and perhaps you do
too Prizes serve as false idols
everywhere prestige wealth fame power
you will be exposed to many of these if
not all of course part of why I was
invited to come speak today beyond my
being a proud alum is that I’ve accrued
some very coveted toys in my life
including a not so plastic not so crappy
one an Oscar
so we bump up against a common trope I
think of the commencement address people
who have achieved a lot telling you that
the fruits of achievement are not always
to be trusted
but I think that contradiction can be
reconciled and is in fact instructive
achievement is wonderful when you know
why you’re doing it and when you don’t
know it can be a terrible trap I went to
a public high school on Long Island
Syosset high school whoo-hoo acid the
girls I went to school with had Prada
bags and flat ironed hair and they spoke
with an axe and I who would move there
at age nine from Connecticut mimic to
fit in Florida oranges chocolate
cherries since I’m ancient and the
internet was just starting when I was in
high school people didn’t really pay
that much attention to the fact that I
was an actress I was known mainly
at school for having a backpack bigger
than I was and always having whiteout on
my hands as I hated seeing anything
crossed out in my notebooks I was voted
for my senior yearbook most likely to be
a contestant on Jeopardy or code for
nerdiest when I got to Harvard just
after the release of Star Wars Episode
one I knew I would be starting over in
terms of how people viewed me
I feared people would assume I had
gotten in just for being famous and that
they would think I was not worthy of the
intellectual rigor here and they would
not have been far from the truth
when I came here I had never written a
10 page paper before I’m not even sure
I’d written a five page paper I was
alarmed and intimidated by the calm eyes
of fellow students who came here from
Dalton or Exeter who thought that
compared to high school the workload
here was easy I was completely
overwhelmed and thought that reading a
thousand pages a week was unimaginable
that writing a 50 page thesis was just
something I could never do
I had no ideas how to declare I had no
idea how to declare my intentions I
couldn’t even articulate them to myself
I’d been acting since I was 11 but I
thought acting was too frivolous and
certainly not meaningful I came from a
family of academics and was very
concerned with being taken seriously in
contrast to my inability to declare
myself on my first day of orientation
freshman year five separate students
introduce themselves to me by saying I’m
going to be President remember I told
you that
their names for the record were Bernie
Sanders Marco Rubio Ted Cruz Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton in all
seriousness I believed every one of them
their bearing and self confidence alone
seemed proof of their prophecy where I
couldn’t shake my self-doubt I got in
only because I was famous this was how
others saw me it was how I saw myself
driven by these insecurities I decided
that I was going to find something to do
at Harvard that was serious and
meaningful that would change the world
and make it a better place at the age of
18 I had already been acting for seven
years and assumed I’d find a more
serious and profound path in college so
freshman fall I decided to take
neurobiology and advanced modern Hebrew
literature because I was serious and
intellectual needless to say I should
have failed both I got B’s for your
information and to this day every Sunday
I burn a small effigy to the pagan gods
of Great Inflation but as I was fighting
my way through a life by yahushua in
hebrew and the different mechanisms of
neural response i saw friends around me
writing papers on sailing and pop
culture magazines and professors
teaching classes on fairy tales and the
matrix I realized that seriousness for
serious is seriousness is sake was its
own kind of trophy and a dubious one
opposed I sought to counter some half
imagined argument about who I was there
was a reason I was an actor I love what
I do and I saw from my peers and my
mentors that that was not only an
acceptable reason it was the best reason
when I got to my graduation sitting
where you sit today after four years of
trying to get excited about something
else I admitted to myself that I
couldn’t wait to go back and make more
films I wanted to tell stories to
imagine the lives of others and help
others do the same I had found or
perhaps reclaimed my reason you have a
prize now or at least you will tomorrow
the prize is a Harvard degree in your
hand but what is your reason behind it
my Harvard degree represents for me the
curiosity and invention that were
encouraged here the
friendships I’ve sustained the way
professor Graham told me not to describe
the way light hit a flower but rather
the shadow that the flower cast the way
professor scary talked about theater as
a transformative religious force how
professor Coughlin showed how much of
our visual cortex is activated just by
imagining now granted these things don’t
necessarily help me answer the most
common questions I’m asked what designer
are you wearing what’s your fitness
regime any makeup tips but I have never
since been embarrassed to myself ask
what I might previously have thought was
a stupid question my Harvard degree and
other awards are emblems of the
experiences which led me to them the
wood-paneled lecture halls the colorful
fall leaves the hot vanilla Toscanini
‘he’s reading great novels and
overstuffed library chairs running
through dining halls screaming whoo aah
City stuff City stuff city steps City
step it’s easy now to romanticize my
time here but I had some very difficult
times here too some combination of being
19 dealing with my first heartbreak
taking birth control pills that have
since been taken off the market for
their depressive side effects and
spending too much time missing daylight
during winter months led me into some
pretty dark moments particularly during
sophomore year there were several
occasions I started crying and meetings
with professors overwhelmed with what I
was supposed to pull off when I could
barely get myself out of bed in the
morning moments when I took on the motto
for my school work done not good
if only I could finish my work even if
it took eating a jumbo pack of Sour
Patch Kids to get me through a single 10
page paper I felt that I had
accomplished a great feat I’d repeat to
myself done not good a couple of years
ago I went to Tokyo with my husband and
I ate at the most remarkable sushi
restaurant I don’t even eat fish I’m
vegan so that tells you how good it was
even with just vegetables this sushi was
the stuff you dream about the restaurant
had six seats my husband and I marveled
at how anyone could make rice so
superior to all other rice we wondered
why they didn’t make
restaurant and be the most popular place
in town our local friends explain to us
that all the best restaurants in Tokyo
are that small and do only one type of
dish sushi or tempura or teriyaki
because they want to do that thing well
and beautifully and it’s not about
quantity it’s about taking pleasure in
the perfection and beauty of the
particular I’m still learning now that
it’s about good and maybe never done
that the joy and work ethic and
virtuosity we bring to the particular
can impart a singular type of enjoyment
to those we give to and of course to
ourselves and my professional life it
also took me time to find my own reasons
for doing my work the first film I was
in came out in 1994 again appallingly
the year most of you were born I was 13
years old upon the film’s release and I
can still quote what the New York Times
said about me verbatim miss Portman
poses better than she acts the film had
a universally tepid critical response
and went on to bomb commercially that
film was called the professional or Lian
in Europe and today 20 years and 35
films later it is still the film people
approached me about the most to tell me
how much they loved it how much it moved
them how it’s their favorite movie I
feel lucky that my first experience
releasing a film was initially such a
disaster by all standard measures I
learned early that my meaning had to be
from the experience of making the film
and the possibility of connecting with
individuals rather than the foremost
trophies in my industry financial and
critical success and also that those
initial reactions could be false
predictors of your works ultimate legacy
I started choosing only jobs I was
passionate about and from which I knew I
could glean meaningful experiences this
thoroughly confused everyone around me
agents producers and audiences alike
I made Goya’s ghost a foreign
independent film and studied art history
visiting the Prado every day for four
months as I read about Goya and the
Spanish Inquisition
I made V for Vendetta studio action
movie for which I learned everything I
could about freedom fighters who and
other eyes might be called terrorists
from an often vague into the Weather
Underground
I made your highness a pothead comedy
with Danny McBride and laughed for three
months straight I was able to own my
meaning and not have it be determined by
box-office receipts or prestige by the
time I got to making Black Swan the
experience was entirely my own I felt
immune to the worst things anyone could
say or write about me and to whether an
audience felt like going to see my movie
or not it was instructive for me to see
that ballet dancers for ballet dancers
once your technique gets to a certain
level the only thing that separates you
from others is your quirks or even flaws
one ballerina was famous for how she
turned slightly off balance you can
never be the best technically someone
will always have a higher jump or more
beautiful line the only thing you can be
the best at is developing your own self
authoring your own experience was very
much what Black Swan itself was about I
worked with Darren Aronofsky the film’s
director to change my last line in the
movie - it was perfect
because my character Nina is only
artistically successful when she finds
perfection and pleasure for herself not
when she’s trying to be perfect in the
eyes of others so when Black Swan was
successful financially and I began
receiving accolades I felt honored and
grateful to have connected with people
but the true core of my meaning I had
already established and I needed it to
be independent of people’s reactions to
me people told me that Black Swan was an
artistic risk a scary challenge to try
to perforate portray a professional
ballet dancer but it didn’t feel like
courage or daring they drew me to it
I was so oblivious to my own limits that
I did things I was woefully unprepared
to do and so the very inexperience that
in college had made me feel insecure and
made me want to play by other’s rules
now was making me actually take risks I
didn’t even realize were risks when
Darren asked me if I could do ballet I
told him that I was basically a
ballerina which by the way I
wholeheartedly believed when it quickly
became clear and preparing for the film
that I was maybe 15 years away from
being a ballerina it made me work a
million times harder and of course the
magic of cinema and body doubles helped
the final effect but the point is if I
had known my own limitations I never
would have taken the risk and the risk
led to one of my greatest artistic and
personal experiences and that I not only
felt completely free I also met my
husband during filming similarly I just
directed my first film a tale of love
and darkness and was quite blind to the
challenges ahead of me
the film is a period film completely in
Hebrew in which I also act with an
eight-year-old child as a co-star all of
these are challenges as should have been
terrified of as I was completely
unprepared for them but my complete
ignorance as to my own limitations
looked like confidence and got me into
the director’s chair once there I had to
figure it all out and my belief that I
could handle these things contrary to
all evidence of my ability to do so was
half the battle the other half was very
hard work the experience was the deepest
and most meaningful one of my career now
clearly I’m not urging you to go perform
heart surgery without the knowledge to
do so making movies admittedly has less
drastic consequences than most
professions and allows for a lot of
effects that make up for mistakes the
thing I’m saying is make use of the fact
that you don’t doubt yourself too much
right now as we get older we get more
realistic and that gets and then that
includes about our own abilities or lack
thereof and that realism does us no
favors people always talk about diving
into things you’re afraid of that never
worked for me if I’m afraid I run away
and I would probably urge my child to do
the same fear protects us in many ways
what has served me as diving into my own
obliviousness being more confident than
I should be which everyone tends to
decry and American kids and those of us
who have been great inflated and ego
inflated well it can be a good thing if
it makes you try things you never might
have tried your inexperience is an asset
and will allow you to think in original
unconventional ways except your lack of
knowledge and use it as your asset I
know a famous violinist who told me that
he can’t compose because he knows too
many pieces so when he starts thinking
of a note an existing piece immediately
comes to mind
just starting out one of your biggest
strengths is not knowing how things are
supposed to be you can compose freely
because your mind isn’t cluttered with
too many pieces and you don’t take for
granted the way things are the only way
you know how to do things is your own
way you hear we’ll all go on to achieve
great things there is no doubt about
that
each time you set out to do something
new your inexperience can either lead
you down a path where you will conform
to someone else’s values or you can
forge your own path even if you don’t
realize that’s what you’re doing if your
reasons are your own your path even if
it’s a strange and clumsy path will be
wholly yours and you will control the
rewards of what you do by making your
internal life fulfilling at the risk of
sounding like a Miss America
contestant the most fulfilling things
I’ve experienced have truly been the
human interactions spending time with
women and village banks in Mexico with
finca microfinance organization meeting
young women who were the first and only
in their communities to attend secondary
school in rural Kenya with free the
children a group that build sustainable
schools in developing countries trekking
with gorillas conservationists in Rwanda
it’s a cliche because it’s true that
helping others ends up helping you more
than anyone getting out of your own
concerns and caring about someone else’s
life for a while reminds you that you
are not the center of the universe and
that in the ways we are generous or not
we can change the course of someone’s
life even at work the small feats of
kindness crew members directors fellow
actors have shown me have had the most
lasting impact and of course first and
foremost the center of my world is the
love I share with my family and friends
I wish for you that your friends will be
with you through it all as my friends
from Harvard have been together since we
graduated my friends from school are
still very close
we have nursed each other through
heartaches and danced at each other’s
weddings we’ve held each other at
funerals and rocked each other’s new
babies we’ve worked together on projects
helped each other get jobs and thrown
parties for when we’ve quit bad ones and
now our children are creating a second
general
of friendship as we look at them
toddling together haggard and disheveled
working parents that we are grab the
good people around you don’t let them go
the biggest asset this school offers you
is a group of peers that will be both
your family and your school for life I
remember always being pissed at the
spring here in Cambridge tricking us
into remembering a sunny yard full of
laughing threes frisbee throwers after
eight months of dark frigid library
dwelling it was Lake the school had
managed to turn on the good weather is
the last memory we should keep in mind
that would make us want to come back but
as I get farther away from my years here
I know that the power of this school is
much deeper than weather control it
changed the very questions I was asking
to quote one of my favorite thinkers
Abraham Joshua Heschel to be or not to
be is not the question the vital
question is how to be and how not to be
thank you I can’t wait to see how you do
all the beautiful things you will do
[Applause]