I used to really like Natalie Portman. I saw her as this smart Harvard graduate with a commitment to activism and vegetarianism. Then she wrote that obnoxious piece for the Huffington Post that arguably – arguably – compared eating meat to rape. Maybe she didn’t mean it that way, but that’s how it read to a lot of people. She could have easily issued a clarification or a follow-up statement explaining that she was misinterpreted, but she never did.

Portman also signed the petition calling for Roman Polanski’s release. After that, I kind of soured on her and she became a well-intentioned holier-than-thou character to me. If she continues to be noncontroversial for a while or does something particularly nice I might change my mind.

Portman is doing a lot of publicity for her film Brothers, which is out this Friday. It’s about a woman whose husband (Tobey Maguire) goes away to the war in Iraq and is reported killed in action. She falls into the arms of his brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) and then her husband miraculously returns, only to throw her whole world askew. It looks like a bummer, frankly, and I don’t think it will do that well at the box office. Brothers is probably gunning for awards, though, and I bet Maguire and Gyllenhaal turn in very solid performances that could earn nominations. As for Portman, she just doesn’t do it for me, but many people think she’s a fabulous actress so we’ll see.

In an interview with Harpers Bazaar, only part of which is available online, Portman reminds us that she’s not a complete goody-goody by saying that she did smoke pot, but that she was in her 20s. She didn’t drink until she was in college, though:

Portman says she was “definitely working at a young age, but there’s a whole growth in that.” She got to spend three months in France when she was 11, shooting The Professional, and on her days off her mother would take her to Monet’s house in Giverny and encourage her to come home and paint a version of what she’d seen. When she traveled to Japan for the premiere of The Professional, her parents insisted on a week off to explore the country. Portman shrugs: “OK, so I didn’t really go to high school parties,” she says, “and yeah, I didn’t touch pot till I was in my 20s. I didn’t get flat-out drunk until I went to college. But I think that’s a good thing in many ways.”

[From Marie Claire via Huffington Post]

Ok Natalie, we get it. You did smoke pot and drink but you waited so it’s not a big deal. This is just like the story that you cut yourself, but it’s ok because you only did it once. It’s like you’re just like us, but better.

Portman also has an interview in Parade, and she gives at least one interesting anecdote about how strict security is on set in the digital age. She also says she’d like to have kids but that she can’t plan for it:

A role she’s been waiting for.
“It was such a fantastic opportunity because so many parts written for females my age are just, like, the cute, girlish love interest. To get to play a real woman who’s really strong and a good mother was really a great opportunity. It was not that challenging to be mother-ish because I have the most maternal mom in the world. So I’ve had a role model for my entire life.”

Maybe she’s getting closer to a family of her own.
“I feel like I’m coming into my womanhood, and I’m less afraid or maybe I’m just getting old. I think about having kids, but I think you can’t plan for that sort of thing. It’s not like you can work at it.”

But she wouldn’t send her kids to war.
“I could not do it myself. But, I also think that in the world we live in, in certain countries, you can’t not have an army. Obviously, I’m referring specifically to Israel. I think if Israel didn’t have an army, it wouldn’t exist. That’s a hypothesis I really wouldn’t want to test, like the Israelis going, ‘OK, let’s just try it out and not have an army and see what happens.'”

Keeping her role in Thor, the next Marvel comics blockbuster, under wraps.
“I think everyone has gotten more secretive just because of the preponderance of technology that can scam just about anything. It’s like you don’t get a script anymore that doesn’t have watermarks that would identify you if you ever tried to leak anything. The Thor script is hard to read because it’s on some weird colored paper and they have your name in huge letters across every page. And any time you get a phone call from Marvel, it doesn’t come up as a normal number, it’s like a five digit code. I’ve never seen that before. I’ve had phone calls from people in the government and they don’t have that. Marvel’s like some like crazy underground world.”

[From Parade, link has automatic video]

At least we don’t hear a lot about Portman when she’s not promoting something. I know technically I should admire her because she seems relatively normal, smart and scandal-free, but I don’t have strong feelings either way. A commenter on the Huffington Post compared her to Anne Hathaway because they both have this kind of superior pseudo-intellectual way about them. Hathaway definitely annoys me, but Portman only sort-of grates on my nerves, like a sluggish fly you open the window for hoping it will find its way out on its own.

Natalie Portman is shown on 11/30/09 at the IFP Independent Film Awards in New York. Credit: PNP/WENN.com