natalie portman

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natalie portman is one of the few actresses that have maintained her artistic integrity over the course of her entire career, which at this point has spanned two decades. still at 28 years old, she has kept her privacy in her posession and has had admirable achievements (a harvard degree, humanitarian work in underprivileged countries...no big deal) that make her seem invincible. she's dripping in intellect and i find her to be completely fascinating, her killer style helps too. in a recent interview with jake gyllenhall for interview magazine she gave an optimistic view on the recession that i found to be uplifting after a year of doomsday talk:

in lavin at cannes

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"But actually, as far as the more general state of things right now, I think it’s kind of an exciting time. I mean, everyone is cutting back. It’s happening in every industry—including our own. But I think that’s going to translate into a situation where people aren’t motivated by money as much as they have been in the recent past. A lot of my friends from college went into fields like banking for financial reasons—obviously people have school loans and things to pay off.

And now, all of a sudden, they’re doing jobs that they hate and they’re not making as much money as they thought they would or they’ve lost their jobs entirely. So I’ve started to see people looking more toward their own passions and what really excites them. Obviously it’s much easier to say that you’re going to follow your passions when you’re financially secure, but at least we can take solace in the fact that we now have the time to pursue the things that we really want to pursue because now the option of doing things just for the money isn’t necessarily there."

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since i've been grappling with looming graduation and what i should do with my life now that i'm being forced to be an actual adult, i needed this little bit of inspiration. oh natalie portman, how i love thee.