Natalie Portman has been in the public eye for nearly 30 years, but her young stardom and the film industry, in general, had a lasting affect on her intimate development.
While chatting with Dax Shepard on his "Armchair Expert" podcast, the actress spoke about breaking into the industry at the age of 12 in "Leon: The Professional," in which she played a girl living with an assassin.
The movie was a hit, but Natalie's newfound stardom "didn't allow the full expression of who I was at that time," she said.
Over the years, the Oscar-winning actress, who's now 39, has been largely perceived as having a fiercely conservative lifestyle. That, she said, was something she did to protect herself.
"Being sexualized as a child took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid," she said. "So many people had this impression of me that I was super-serious and prude and conservative as I got older. I consciously cultivated that because it was a way to make me feel safe. If someone respects you, they're not going to objectify you."
Since her big break in 1994, Natalie has had big roles in a slew of massively-popular films such as "Star Wars," but she's also played several troubled characters, particularly in "Black Swan" and "Beautiful Girls." In 1997, she was offered the role of Lolita in the film of the same name. She turned it down because of the sexual content. In the film, Lolita is kidnapped as a child and becomes romantically involved with her captor. Natalie didn't want her real life to be likened to the character, she said of why she passed on the gig,
Afterward, she even went on to turn down other roles that involved love scenes or kissing.
"At that age you do have your own sexuality, and you do have your own desire and you do want to explore things … but you don't feel safe necessarily," she said. "You build these fortresses."
Dax noted that other child stars such as Miley Cyrus or Bella Thorne had different paths, as they had clean-cut Disney roles but later shared their thoughts on sexuality in very public manners.
"It's totally true," Natalie said.
In 2012, Natalie married choreographer Benjamin Millepied. They share two children.