Natalie Portman helps to keep “Thor” grounded
For the big-budget Marvel Studios adaptation of “Thor,” the filmmakers made some changes to the character of Jane Foster, introduced way back in 1962′s “Journey Into Mystery” No. 84 as a nurse.
Natalie Portman, an Academy Award winner for “Black Swan,” plays the character in the upcoming “Thor” movie and says the character takes into account the way women’s roles have changed since the 1960s.
“Jane in the comic books is a nurse, and now she’s an astrophysics doctoral candidate,” Portman said. “Things have been updated. Women can be scientists in different ways now.”
“Thor” stars Chris Hemsworth as the titular character, the thunder god of myth who has been exiled to Earth by his father, Odin. On Earth, he meets up with Foster.
“She has some family things that echo Thor’s familial situation, so that there’s that sort of a bond between them,” Portman said. “Obviously, they have a common quest because he’s trying to get back home, and her whole interest of study is these connections between dimensions.”
Portman and director Kenneth Branagh wanted to make the character of Foster believable as a scientist.
“Ken and I talked a lot before we started about how to make Jane like a realistic scientist on screen, not just make her someone like the Denise Richards in Bond with the glasses and so she’s a scientist,” she said. “But we talked about how real scientists are kind of like artists. They’re able to imagine things that aren’t there.”
Foster has been portrayed with various looks and motivations throughout the comic book character’s near-50-year run. Portman said the “Thor” film had to distill all of the characters and storylines down to fit into a 2:10 running time.
“The challenge, more for the writers than for us even, but for the writers and for Ken as the director, is finding one tone, choosing which of the stories to tell, because obviously all of these are sagas that have gone on for decades,” she said.
Though many things have changed from the comic-book series, Portman said one element that remained was Jane Foster as a grounding force for Thor.
“I think definitely that is part of her role in the movie,” she said. “It sort of grounds him. He’s exiled to Earth to learn humility. I think her earthiness is part of, hopefully, what transforms him. There are definitely changes in the character from the comic books, but that is certainly one of the things that has stayed.”
- By Matthew Price
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From Friday’s The Oklahoman
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Between having just won an Oscar for her stunning role as a ballerina in Black Swan, then announcing she is pregnant and is due to have her first child (what looks to be) any day, now she is getting ready to celebrate the release of her newest movie – http://bit.ly/lUGHbe