One of Natalie Portman’s most iconic roles, even twenty years later, is V For Vendetta. How can one forget how great she looked with a shaved head? She just shared her personal takes on what it was like to be without hair for awhile, I didn’t see this recommendation coming from her.
Portman first rocked a buzzcut in 2005 at the premiere of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith at Cannes Film Festival. It had been freshly shaven on set when she hopped on a plane to go to the glitzy event in between filming. As she recalled about attending the event with the fresh cut in her words:
Everyone was like, ‘Oh wow, she has no hair.’ And then I went back, got on a plane and went back to Berlin and started shooting again on Monday. It was pretty wild to be out in public exposed like a baby bird. I feel like it’s something every woman should do at least once in her life. It feels so amazing to have rain on your head for the first time.
Wow, what a glowing review from Natalie Portman about shaving one’s head! While speaking to Harper’s Bazaar, the actress suggested that “every woman” give it a try at some point in their life. She loved it because it felt amazing to feel the rain on her head – which funny enough is the same thing Millie Bobby Brown pointed out about going bald for Stranger Things. Portman had a really positive review for shaving her head, but there is something she didn’t like so much:
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I did not love growing it back. I have curly hair, and so when it grows back you just look like a little boy for a very long time.
Another solid point. I guess there’s always a baseball cap for those awkward growing pains? In V for Vendetta, Portman’s character of Evey has her head shaved against her will when she’s captured, imprisoned and tortured in the dystopian thriller. The moment when her head was shaved off had to be captured in one take with three cameras at once. During rehearsals for the scene, Portman said a bunch of men on the crew offered to have their heads shaved in order for it to be tested and ready for Portman.
Portman is one of quite a few actors who’ve left their hair behind for a while for a role. Emma Stone is the most recent example for her film Bugonia, but in her case, she made her director Yorgos Lanthimos do so too “in solidarity”. Though, the pact wasn’t as satisfying as Stone thought it would be. Florence Pugh also shaved her head for We Live In Time, and has talked about how she was worried she might look like “an egg” before officially committing to it, and embracing the haircut wholeheartedly.
You can check out Natalie Portman in V For Vendetta with a Paramount+ subscription. It’s still arguably one of her best movies, so her bold haircut was absolutely worth it.
