“Did you know you look like Natalie Portman, the HollyWood actress?”

“Yes”, said the salesgirl in the Sketcher’s shop, smiling; “ Everyone says that!”

I could swear that was her!

No nose job, no cosmetic surgery, no makeup and no designer clothes, no brand shoes or perfume.

It was the young Natalie Portman lost in time.

The one who did not end up becoming a HollyWood actress and win the Oscar for best acting.

The one who did not start acting at 11, did not come from a family of academics and did not gain admission to Harvard.

It was Natalie Portman minus Natalie Portman’s achievements.

I would be flattered to see someone look like me (to whom everybody mentions that she does), and someone else write about it (which eventually will be read by a large audience of readers.)

1. Natalie

| Really, what makes her, HER?

In a motivational speech as a Harvard graduation ceremony, Natalie Portman talks about her; Her life, her career, her education, and finally her career again.

According to her own review of her formative years, she has been a rich kid, from a prestigious family, who attended ivy league schools and colleges while she was already famous as an actress.

Yet she wanted to be taken more seriously, as acting was considered, as Natalie herself puts it, “frivolous”, and to make history, she had to “…do something that changed the world.”

when she got admitted to Harvard, she still did not feel accomplished, because she figured her success could and would be counted as a concomitant of fame. She felt, as she recounts, that she had to do something to prove this wrong; that she had to take courses that were considered significant and world-changing. She came from a substantial family, and acting alone would not guarantee excelling herself.

That’s how she started over, this time as a committed Harvard coed.

By the time she finished her education, Portman knew that getting a degree was just a “prize” of the years she had spent learning, and not the…