Sarah Lane, Natalie Portman's 'Black Swan' Body Double Speaks Out
Natalie Portman, who won this year's Best Actress Oscar for her ballet dancer' role in the film "Black Swan", has done only 5 % of full body dance shots in the film, says Sarah Lane who served as a dancing double for Natalie Portman in "Black Swan". The ballerina claimed that she suffered "cover-up" to hide the reality about how much dancing Natalie originally performed in the film.
The American Ballet Theatre soloist Sarah Lane, who performed most of the dance scenes in the film said, "Of full body shots, I would say 5% percent are Natalie .all the other shots are me." Natalie's face was digitally grafted onto Lane's body.
Sarah Lane broke her silence when an article published in March 23' L.A. Times in which Natalie's fiancé and choreographer of Black Swan Benjamin Millepied talked about Oscar-winning Black Swan and denied that most of the dance work was performed by Lane in the film. Benjamin stated in the news-paper, "There are articles now talking about her (Natalie)dance double that are making it sound like (Lane) did a lot of the work, but really, she just did the footwork, and the fouettés, and one diagonal in the studio, Honestly, 85 percent of that movie is Natalie."
The article disappointed Sarah and she told to EW.com that only those scenes which show Natalie's face and arms are originally done by Natalie Portman but it doesn't show the actual dancing. She also revealed that producer of the film Ari Handel cautioned her to not to speak about her work in press. But as there wasn't any such clear statement in her contract the artist says, "They wanted to create this idea in people's minds that Natalie was some kind of prodigy or so gifted in dance and really worked so hard to make herself a ballerina in a year and a half for the movie, basically because of the Oscar. It is demeaning to the profession and not just to me. I've been doing this for 22 years.. Can you become a concert pianist in a year and a half, even if you're a movie star?" Later, the artist insisted that she isn't speaking because of jealousy and told that there is no doubt that Natalie is an amazing actress.
(Written by Neha Tag)
Filed under: Celebrity Gossip
Comments
# katia
-3/29/2011 10:10:33 AM
think readers are getting confused between what Sarah Lane considers "on Screen Dancing" and what the director considers just "dancing".
Sarah is saying that of all the foot/feet shots and full body shots (she considers the REAL dancing), the majority of that is HER. WHICH IS TRUE! The director is saying of all the dance-ish scenes (Natalie waving her arms around in port de bras etc without showing her lower body) those are ALL Natalie. WHICH IS ALSO TRUE! (I'm not counting scenes where Natalie is just standing around in dance attire -- THAT'S NOT DANCING!)
Natalie danced 111 of 139 scenes, and Sarah 28. Of the 111 scenes that natalie danced they were mostly head or upper body shots. Any real dancer knows that's not REAL dancing and Sarah is just trying to make that point.
Sarah is not in the wrong when she says 90% of the shots showing feet or Full body are HER!
I think articles are confusing what is REAL dancing (full body dancing) and what is dance-ish (upper body moving the hands around like most kids do). Dancing is a FULL-BODY art form. It was altered by the director to look good on film and he did a good job with it but.. that doesn't change the nature of WHAT IS REAL DANCE.
This would not be happening if the studio hadn’t endlessly hyped Portman’s dance study and the lie that she did almost all the dancing herself. What the heck. She should have been honest — she did the acting, Lane did the dancing.
I don't understand why there is so much argument over the issue. Give Sarah her CREDIT and let the rest be. Once again the directors statements are DISCREDITING Sarah's role.
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# tina -3/29/2011 3:31:38 AM
It is physically IMPOSSIBLE for an adult woman to train in ballet to this extent of ability in 1 1/2 yrs.IMPOSSIBLE.There is years and years of extensive strength building involved that must begin in early childhood to gain this sort of fluidity and grace and strength in ballet.Arm positions and simple pirouettes and the warm up stretches are all about what Ms. Portman did in this movie. There is NO way possible she could have trained to dance en pointe in one year and half. NO WAY. And no, I do not deny her acting ability and her deserving the award she's been given for acting in this movie. She is to be commended. However a big part of the movie was watching the beauty of the dance...which in all cases came strictly from the dance body double...I didn't even know her name....all I know is she dances like an angel and deserves recgnition of some type.
The least Natalie could have done was give credit where credit is due to Sarah Lane.