Sour grapes or legitimate outing?!?
A story is circulating the net today in which Natalie Portman’s ballerina double in BLACK SWAN claims she was the victim of a cover up to falsely paint Portman as the primary dancer in her Oscar winning turn. Seriously.
According to American Ballet Theater soloist Sarah Lane, who worked as Portman’s dancing double in the film: “Of the full body shots, I would say 5 percent are Natalie…all the other shots are me.”
Lane goes on to explain how Portman’s face had been digitally grafted on to her body, making it look like Natalie did all of the full body dancing:
“The shots that are just her face with arms, those shots are definitely Natalie,” she says. “But that doesn’t show the actual dancing.”
“They wanted to create this idea in people’s minds that Natalie was some kind of prodigy or so gifted in dance and really worked so hard to make herself a ballerina in a year and a half for the movie, basically because of the Oscar,” says Lane. “It is demeaning to the profession and not just to me. I’ve been doing this for 22 years…. Can you become a concert pianist in a year and a half, even if you’re a movie star?”
The gloves come off all the way:
“I mean, from a professional dancer’s standpoint, she doesn’t look like a professional ballet dancer at all and she can’t dance in pointe shoes. And she can’t move her body; she’s very stiff,” says Lane. “I do give her a lot of credit because in a year and a half she lost a lot of weight and she really tried to go method and get into a dancers head and really feel like a ballet dancer.”
Wow. Fact-fudging in Hollywood? Never. Still, Lane claims she was told by SWAN producer Ari Handel not to discuss the “cover up,” though no such stipulation was included in her six week contract. I’m not sure it’s envy speaking for what Lane says was a disappoint to see herself credited as “hand model,” “Stunt Double,” and “Lady in the Lane.” Lane ended the interview with:
“I know that it’s not a personal thing against me. I know that it’s just a political thing. It’s just unfortunate that I kind of lost credit.”
Alrighty then, you have a reaction to this? Should Portman’s performance be detracted some, her Oscar rescinded. Pretty silly if you ask me, but it does kind of cement my assertion that Michelle Williams should have won for BLUE VALENTINE (this coming from a dude who said Portman would score an Oscar nod in August, two or three months before BLACK SWAN came out).
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