Natalie Hershlag is known to us as Natalie Portman, an American actress. She was born on June 9, 1981 in Jerusalem, Israel to Shelley Stevens, an American homemaker and Avner Hershlag, an Israeli fertility specialist and gynecologist. Her grandparents from her mother’s side were Jewish immigrants to the United States of America. They left Austria and Russia and changed their names from Edelstein to Stevens. The other grandparents of Natalie Portman were Polish and Romanian immigrants to Israel. Her paternal grandfather was an economics professor and his parents died at Auschwitz. The Romanian great-grandmother of Natalie Portman was actually a spy in World War II, working for the British Intelligence. The parents of Natalie Portman met at the Ohio State University, where both were enrolled. After her father returned to Israel, they continued their relationship and a few years later they married in his country.

When Natalie Portman was just 3 years old, her parents decided to leave Israel for the United States of America. Natalie Portman declared for the press that she really loves the US, but she can only feel at home when she is in Israel, more precisely in Jerusalem. In the US, she first lived in Washington D.C., then in Connecticut and later, she settled with her parents in Long Island, New York, in 1990. Natalie Portman learned both Hewbrew and English and she has a dual citizenship. She also attended a Jewish elementary school in New York. She attended high school in Syosset, Long Island and she graduated in 1999.

To study for her final exams, Natalie Portman missed the premiere of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, where she played Queen Padma Amidala. During her work as an actress, Natalie Portman also enrolled at Harvard College. In 2003 she graduated with a degree in psychology. Because all eyes were on her and her fans were fearing she may lose opportunities if she studies, Natalie Portman declared to the press that she prefers to be smart then to be an actress. Besides these studies, she also took classes of French, Japanese, German and Arabic. In present, Natalie Portman is engaged and the mother of a baby boy called Aleph.