Natalie Portman says playing 'sexaulized characters' at 12 messed up her sexuality

Natalie Portman recently shared the trauma she had to endure after she portrayed characters in her childhood that were sexualized in one way or the other. The Thor movie star even stated that being sexualized as a child in her early movies had a negative impact on her identity as it made her feel afraid of sex in life.

Natalie Portman was recently a guest on the Armchair Expert podcast, where she told the host that playing sexualized characters at the start of her career harmed her personal life.

"Being sexualized as a child, I think, took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid, and it made me like the way I could be safe was to be like, 'I'm conservative,' and 'I'm serious, and you should respect me,' and 'I'm smart,' and 'Don't look at me that way."

Natalie even stated that one has their own sexuality, and one wishes to explore certain dimensions.

"But you don't feel safe, necessarily, when there's, like, older men that are interested, and you're like, 'No, no, no, no.'"

Natalie Portman childhood movies:

The 39-year-old Natalie Portman began her acting career at the age of 12 by starring as the young protegee of a hitman in the action-drama film Leon: The Professional. In the cult-classic movie, she played Mathilda, an orphan child who befriends a middle-aged hitman. The movie's early narration had nudity and killings committed by Portman's character, which director Luc Besson removed.

Upon the release, Leon: The Professional garnered mixed responses. One critic pointed out that Natalie Portman was not enough of an actress to unfold Mathilda's pain and even criticized Besson's sexualization of her character.

In 1996, director Ted Demme cast her as a precocious teenager who flirts with her much-older neighbor in the ensemble comedy-drama movie Beautiful Girls. Natalie was then offered Adrian Lyne's Lolita, but she turned down the part due to its excessive sexual content.

In one of her later interviews, Natalie Portman talked about The Professional and Beautiful Girls and how these projects prompted a series of offers to play a sexualized youngster, adding that it "dictated a lot of my choices afterward 'cos it scared me...it made me reluctant to do sexy stuff."

In 1998, she made her Broadway theatre debut of The Diary of a Young Girl. However, it was Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace that made her a household name.