Before she was an Academy Award-winning actress, A-list star and mother, Natalie Portman was just like any other kid trying to make it in the business. Except, she was far more self-aware of her talent and dreams than most. The story goes she turned down a child modelling gig with Revlon to focus on her acting and well, the gambit worked.
Her first feature film appearance managed to be the kind of breakthrough most only dream of, landing the key co-starring role in Luc Besson‘s assassin tale “Leon: The Professional.” She matched Jean Reno every step of the way and gave the movie it’s emotional heart, and now you see why the filmmakers believed in her talent. Her audition tape has been floating around for a while, but we hadn’t seen it before and, thanks to Filmmaker IQ pointing us in the direction, you can see it below. And yeah, it’s very, very convincing stuff.
Anyway, give it a look below and then try and imagine anyone else taking the part of Mathilda (Liv Tyler was considered at one point, fyi).
