Oscar-winning star Natalie Portman has urged child actors to avoid working in Hollywood, saying that it was “an accident of luck” that she wasn’t harmed in the industry.
Natalie Portman, whose movie career kicked off when she was just 12 years old with The Professional, was asked in a Variety interview if she thought children should be working in Hollywood
“I would not encourage young people to go into this. I don’t mean ever; I mean as children,” she said. “I feel it was almost an accident of luck that I was not harmed, also combined with very overprotective, wonderful parents. You don’t like it when you’re a kid, and you’re grateful for it when you’re an adult. I’ve heard too many bad stories to think that any children should be part of it.”
Jean Reno loads a gun in front of Natalie Portman in a scene from the film ‘Léon: The Professional’, 1994. (Photo by Columbia Pictures/Getty Images)
She added: “Having said that, I know all the conversations that we’ve been having these past few years. It’s made people more aware and careful. But ultimately, I don’t believe that kids should work. I think kids should play and go to school.”
Portman previously touched on the subject during an interview with The Guardian back in 2007. The actress was asked about her roles in The Professional and Beautiful Girls — both of which were filmed when she was still a minor.
“There’s a surprising preponderance of that kind of role for young girls,” she said. “Sort of being fantasy objects for men, and especially this idealised purity combined with the fertility of youth, and all this in one.”
Portman isn’t the only former child star to blow the whistle on Hollywood.
As Breitbart News reported in 2016, actor Elijah Wood claimed that the entertainment industry is rife with sexual abuse of young boys and girls — and that senior figures within it have been protecting pedophiles for decades.
In 2014, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Amy J. Berg made the documentary An Open Secret, which explored the history of child sexual abuse in Hollywood.
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