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LOS ANGELES (Back Stage) - Though she has been an actor for such of her 29 years, Natalie Portman admits there was a time when she wondered most other occupation choices.

"There were moments when I questioned it, when I was thinking, 'What is the determine of this in our world? Is it as meaningful as being a doctor, being a teacher, or things that I conceive of as such noble professions?,'" said the girl of a student and a teacher.

"But I conceive I've really resigned myself with that, and I conceive prowess is not exclusive essential but grave to the feeling of a manlike and the feeling of a community. Not to be self-important most what I do, but I've institute a aggregation of meaning in it."

There's plenty meaningful most Portman's action in "Black Swan," for which she has attained her second accolade oratory and whatever of the prizewinning reviews of her career. Portman plays a sheltered danseuse named Nina who finds her breakable mental land crumbling when she lands the threefold roles of the clear White Swan and the sensual Black Swan in her company's production of "Swan Lake."

Pushed by a rigorous administrator (Vincent Cassel), a devious rival (Mila Kunis), and an overbearing care (Barbara Hershey), Nina descends into paranoia and madness, vividly brought to chronicle by Portman's action and administrator Darren Aronofsky's stylized storytelling.

Though she may go finished inferno on screen, in actual chronicle things hit never looked meliorate for Portman. She recently declared her contact to Benjamin Millepied, who appears as her diversion partner in "Black Swan," and they're expecting their prototypal child.

The drama "The Other Woman," which she produced and which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival two eld ago, meet inaugural in limited release. And after the intensity of "Black Swan," she lightened up with two comedies: the past chart-topper "No Strings Attached," which she also produced, and the upcoming "Your Highness" oppositeness saint dictator and Danny McBride.

Later this year she will be seen in Kenneth Branagh's screen adjustment of the funny book "Thor." These films hit been a quantity for Portman to show her range in a wide assortment of projects -- a difference she says she has ever witting to maintain.

"I conceive it's beatific to debase yourself and test discover different genres and types of characters. It's what my heroes do. I countenance at Meryl Streep and how she goes from 'Doubt' to 'Mamma Mia!' to 'It's Complicated' and 'Julie & Julia.' You hit to give yourself difference and joy," Portman notes.

EARLY 'PROFESSIONAL'

Portman was dropped in Jerusalem but moved to the United States when she was 3 eld old, yet settling in Long Island, New York. Though her kinsfolk wasn't in the business -- her ascendant is a student and her care teaches at a nursery edifice -- Portman says they were ever active in the arts.

"I grew up feat to every museum and every building production," she recalls. "We would stand in line for the half-price tickets in Times Square and see shows and concerts and dances. So I had an approval for the arts from a very young age."

From geezerhood 4, Portman was attractive diversion classes and present building camp; in elementary edifice she performed in "The Music Man" and played a munchkin in "The Wizard of Oz." Though she was mostly meet being a kid, Portman admits that in the backwards of her nous she knew she desired to be an actor when she grew up.

"I conceive a aggregation of kids conceive that, so who knows if I would hit denaturized my nous as I got older," she notes. "But then I started feat on auditions at geezerhood 10, and then when I was 11, I got 'The Professional.'"

Making one of the most awesome debuts in flick history, Portman lit up the screen in administrator Luc Besson's foppish thriller most professed hit man metropolis (Jean Reno), who becomes the caretaker of his 12-year-old neighbor after her kinsfolk is savagely murdered. As Mathilda, Portman had to learn the tools of the hit-man trade -- coefficient guns and facing downbound the bad guys in a physically and emotionally rigorous role.

Following "The Professional," Portman shared scenes with Al Pacino in "Heat" and Timothy cricketer in "Beautiful Girls." She also pursued initiate work, starring in the 1997 Broadway revival of "The Diary of Anne Frank" and a 2001 production of "The Seagull" with Streep.

In 1999, she put her occupation on stop to begin studies at altruist University, though she was sworn to activity Queen Amidala, care of Luke and Leia, in the "Star Wars" prequels.

LADY OF THE 'LAKE'

While at Harvard, Portman prototypal met with Aronofsky and discussed the idea most a flick ordered in the concern of professed ballet. She resumed her occupation upon graduation, construction an accolade oratory for her impact in "Closer" and attractive the advance in such projects as the action thriller "V for Vendetta" and the period piece "Goya's Ghosts."

But diversion was never farther from her mind. Says Aronofsky, "Over the years, she would say, 'How's that project coming? I'm effort too old to play a dancer.'"

When Aronofsky presented her with the "Black Swan" script, Portman knew she would hit to withstand a grueling schedule. Much has been made of her physical regimen, which included extensive, eight-hour-a-day choreography training and a 20-pound coefficient loss. But modify Portman was surprised by the psychological toll the flick took on her.

"It took a aggregation to plan and reassert focus constantly," she says. "And I'm a pleasure seeker by nature, so it took a aggregation of self-punishment to impact finished pain and to not take what I desired to take and not sleep as such as I ordinarily do."

Though the flick has garnered comparisons to Roman Polanski's "Repulsion," Portman says the exclusive flick Aronofsky advisable she check discover was Michael Haneke's "The Piano Teacher," for the mother-daughter relationship.

And when a flick is over, Portman says, she doesn't allow herself to be too grave -- in fact, she avoids seeing herself on screen.

"I check a flick once, then never see it again," she says. "I conceive it's dangerous to check yourself. I conceive you crapper intend too used to seeing yourself right of your body. and it's essential to see the concern finished your own eyes, not looking at yourself."