Natalie Portman’s Director Forgot She Was In Star Wars
Did a major director completely forget that Natalie Portman was in Star Wars. It would appear so considering she was offered another role
It’s no secret that Taika Waititi has had some trouble keeping his Star Wars references, names, and castings straight in the past. For most directors, this wouldn’t be a big deal at all, except that Waititi is about to, you know, write and direct a Star Wars movie. So you’d think he’d have a pretty firm grasp over things. But that wasn’t the case with Natalie Portman recently with the director apparently offering her a role in the upcoming film without realizing, or at least remembering, that she’d already been down this road in the past. And she’d done it more than once as well. While it could all be a bit tongue-in-cheek, there seemed to be at least part of Waititi that completely blanked on Natalie Portman playing an incredibly important role in the Star Wars franchise.
Taika Waititi was doing an interview with Rolling Stone (via MovieWeb) while promoting his upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder which releases this week and brings back Natalie Portman as Jane Foster. While discussing the movie, Waititi got into why they wanted Portman back in the mix here and why they decided to go with the storyline that has her picking up the Mighty Thor mantle and fighting alongside Chris Hemsworth rather than strictly being just a love interest. But in this conversation, Waititi admitted that he thought about another role for Natalie Portman in a movie he has on the way. That was, of course, until she reminded him that she’d already had a hand in the franchise. Check out what he had to say about it:
“Natalie said to me, what do you do next? And I said ‘I’m trying to work on a Star Wars thing. Have you ever wanted to be in a Star Wars movie?’ She said, ‘I’ve been in Star Wars movies.’ I forgot about those ones.”
Oof. For the uninitiated here, Natalie Portman is referring to her role as Queen Padme Amidala in the prequel trilogy of Star Wars films. She first entered the franchise in 1999s Episode I – The Phantom Menace which began the Anakin Skywalker/ Darth Vader storyline. Over the course of the three films, Padme and Hayden Christensen’s Anakin develop a love interest, and eventually she fathers both Luke and Leia Skywalker. Were the prequel trilogies the best Star Wars had to offer? Of course not. But this is a pretty egregious error for Taiki Waititi to just outright forget that she had any part in the franchise before. Did it slip his mind? Maybe. Has he just blocked these movies from his memory? It would be tough to blame him on that front.
So though Taika Waititi thought that bringing Natalie Portman into the Star Wars universe would be a good idea, it would seem that others thought the same. Because they’ve already done it. And remember, Waititi had trouble recalling the name of the droid he actually played in The Mandalorian, and the series he himself helped direct over the course of the first season. It could be that there is just so much rattling around in his brain considering all of the huge productions he’s a part of that some things just fall by the wayside. I think we can give him a pass on that front. As for Natalie Portman, well, we’ll see her in the Mighty Thor role when Thor: Love and Thunder hits screens on July 8th in the United States.
