Portman is vegetariër sinds ze acht jaar oud was.
Ze is afgestudeerd aan de Universiteit van Harvard in psychologie (2003).
Ze staat bekend om haar sociale betrokkenheid. Zo werd ze uitgeroepen tot de ‘milieuvriendelijkste ster ter wereld’ door de groene website Grist.org in 2008 en op het filmfestival van Venetië won ze datzelfde jaar de ‘Movie for Humanity’ award. Dit is de prijs voor de acteur of actrice die zich dat jaar het meest positief heeft ingezet voor goede doelen.
Deze werd in 2008 voor het eerst uitgereikt.
Portman zet zich in voor onder meer de ‘Jane Goodall foundation’.
Ze zet zich in voor de berggorilla’s in Rwanda via het Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project.
Ze promoot daarnaast de schoenen van Té Casan, gemaakt van milieuvriendelijke en niet dierlijke materialen.
Tijdens het filmen van Black Swan kreeg zij een relatie met choreograaf Benjamin Millepied.
Op 27 december 2010 is door hun woordvoerder bekend gemaakt dat zij zich hebben verloofd en dat Portman zwanger is. Zij verwacht haar eerste kind in 2011.
Bron: wikipedia
Nathalie Portman is vegetariër àf sinds 2009 : is na het lezen van Jonathan Safran Foer's ''Dieren eten'' tot het inzicht gekomen dat je als gewone vegetariër heden ten dage evengoed medeplichtig bent aan het afschuwelijke dierenleed en - uitbuiting als de vleesetende medemens (melkproducten, commerciële eieren....)
BeantwoordenVerwijderenNatalie Portman:
BeantwoordenVerwijderen'Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals changed me from a twenty-year vegetarian to a V E G A N activist.
I've always been shy about being critical of others' choices because I hate when people do that to me. I'm often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., "What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what'll you eat?").
I've also been afraid to feel as if I know better than someone else -- a historically dangerous stance (I'm often reminded that "Hitler was a vegetarian, too, you know").
But this book reminded me that some things are just wrong. Perhaps others disagree with me that animals have personalities, but the highly documented torture of animals is unacceptable, and the human cost Foer describes in his book, of which I was previously unaware, is universally compelling.
The human cost of factory farming -- both the compromised welfare of slaughterhouse workers and, even more, the environmental effects of the mass production of animals -- is staggering. Foer details the copious amounts of pig shit sprayed into the air that result in great spikes in human respiratory ailments, the development of new bacterial strains due to overuse of antibiotics on farmed animals, and the origins of the swine flu epidemic, whose story has gripped the nation, in factory farms.
But what Foer most bravely details is how eating animal pollutes not only our backyards, but also our beliefs. He reminds us that our food is symbolic of what we believe in, and that eating is how we demonstrate to ourselves and to others our beliefs: Catholics take communion -- in which food and drink represent body and blood. Jews use salty water on Passover to remind them of the slaves' bitter tears.
And on Thanksgiving, Americans use succotash and slaughter to tell our own creation myth -- how the Pilgrims learned from Native Americans to harvest this land and make it their own.
And as we use food to impart our beliefs to our children, the point from which Foer lifts off, what stories do we want to tell our children through their food?
I say that Foer's ethical charge against animal eating is brave because not only is it unpopular, it has also been characterized as unmanly, inconsiderate, and juvenile. But he reminds us that being a man, and a human, takes more thought than just "This is tasty, and that's why I do it." He posits that consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don't believe in rape, but if it's what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it).
But Foer makes his most impactful gesture as a peacemaker, when he unites the two sides of the animal eating debate in their reasoning.
Both sides argue: We are not them. Those who refrain from eating animals argue: We don't have to go through what they go through -- we are not them. We are capable of making distinctions between what to eat and what not to eat (Americans eat cow but not dog, Hindus eat chicken but not cow, etc.). We are capable of considering others' minds and others' pain. We are not them. Whereas those who justify eating animals say the same thing: We are not them. They do not merit the same value of being as us. They are not us.
And so Foer shows us, through Eating Animals, that we are all thinking along the same lines: We are not them. But, he urges, how will we define who we are?'
Bron: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/natalie-portman/jonathan-safran-foers-iea_b_334407.html