Natalie Portman is currently at the Sundance Film Festival to premiere The Gallerist, in which she stars alongside Jenna Ortega, and she spoke to Variety about how so many female directed films “are not getting the accolades they deserve”.
Portman’s interview took place ahead of the “The Gallerist” world premiere at this year’s festival. The movie, directed by “Birds of Prey” helmer Cathy Yan and co-starring Jenna Ortega, centers on a desperate gallerist who conspires to sell a dead body at Art Basel Miami. Portman heaped praise upon her younger co-star.
“She’s such a fucking great actress and so knowledgeable about film,” Portman said of Ortega. “She’s so on and in it. It is rare. I think you’re very focused and in tune with everything. You’re not there to mess around.”
Portman went on to call Yan “a brilliant leader,” adding: “She has a specificity of vision. All the work ahead of time and her precise leadership leads to the possibility of spontaneity. Balancing this very specific tone that is satirical but also true emotion in it, which is almost impossible to create, she knew how to do it and guide us to it.”
With “The Gallerist” being one of Sundance’s biggest movies from a woman director and the premiere taking place just a few days after the Oscar nominations, Portman also took a moment during the interview to call out the Academy for snubbing a handful of female-directed movies this year. While Chloe Zhao’s “Hamnet” scored 8 nominations, including best picture and best director, many other movies directed by women were shut out.
“So many of the best films I saw this year were made by women,” Portman said. “You just see the barriers at every level because so many were not recognized at awards time. Between ‘Sorry Baby’ and ‘Left-Handed Girl’ and ‘Hedda’ and ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’… Extraordinary films this year that I think a lot of people are enjoying and loving, but are not getting the accolades they deserve.”
Read/watch the interview in full here.
Image: Variety
