Natalie Portman: Black Swan is darkly realistic

The actress plays a disturbed ballerina called Nina Sayers in the movie, who begins to fall apart when she wins the lead role in Swan Lake. The film has received some negative press due to the way the dancing company is portrayed in it, but Natalie doesn’t take it too seriously.

“I think a lot of the details are mined from true stories. I’ve read autobiographies of many dancers from various eras and the New York City ballet and that’s where I got a lot of my ideas from,” she told Cover Media. “There’s some stuff that people might not want to admit is true, but a lot of it is deeply, darkly true.”

The 29-year-old added it’s important people realise Black Swan is just a story, which is supposed to be gripping. Although it might echo some real life facts, the vast bulk of it is not based on any person, or ballet company, in particular.

“Well first of all we’ve had a lot of really wonderful response from dancers, there’s a lot of ballet dancers verifying a lot of the details of the film,” she said. “I think, clearly this depicts one particular dancer’s story in one particular fictional company so it’s not meant to be taken as truth for every company or every dancer. It’s not even trying to be one real person’s story – it’s fiction.”

Black Swan is released in the UK on January 21.