Natalie Portman pictures

In the Professional (1994; originally released in director Luc Besson's native France under the title Léon), Mathilda, played by Natalie Portman, formed an unlikely symbiotic relationship with the professional hitman Jean Reno. As the storyline unfolds, Portman's stunning performance proves that she's an actress to be reckoned with. Her '94 debut was immediately followed by minor performances and appearances before Portman once again captured the audience' minds, next to Matt Dillon and Timothy Hutton, in Beautiful Girls (1996). Her career was a one-way ticket, as she continued to distinguish herself in various films, including Michael Mann's Heat (1995) and Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You (1996), and Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996), in which she played the daughter of President Jack Nicholson.

Portman, who turned 18, June '99, has through many years been recognized for her "mature" performances, and has for that and many others reasons become one of cinema's most promising performers. Yet despite her image as a serious young thespian, Portman, who was born in Jerusalem but raised in New York City, is still somewhat a typical teenager who hangs out with her friends, watches Dawson's Creek, listens to Portishead while she does her homework, ponders college, and harbors a fervent passion for fashion (of which she quotes, "It is an art, but people mistake it for materialism").

When Portman was nine, the family settled in Long Island (after having spent years in Israel, Maryland, and Connecticut while her father received advanced training as a doctor) where she has lived as a suburban kid ever since, attending the local high school (even during the major theatrical coming-of-age, her run as Anne Frank) and escaping to the city on weekends ("where I live is a classic suburb - a nice place to grow up but there's nothing to do, which causes a huge problem for young people"). She loves to dance , particularly at giddy, velvet-rope nightspots such as Life.

With her interest in fashion, Portman is well-suited to play the exotic Queen Amidala in the beginning of a legend, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. In the year of 1995, she met George Lucas in his Marin County home. Approaching the eight year commitment was to Portman not an easy task, as she has yet to reveal her final choice whereas she'll continue as an actress or follow in her father's footsteps to eventually become a doctor (?).

Aware of the potential loss of privacy by starring in a film series that has provoked such devotion among fans worldwide, she signed up for the role as the young queen and future mother of Luke and Leia. "I still can't prepare myself. I don't know what's to come. But what's happened so far has been wonderful, to see people so passionate,"