Inherently, May December is very dramatic, however, throughout the film, you can’t help but laugh at how ridiculous the situation is. This project on the 2023 movie schedule is a dark comedy all about an actress, played by Natalie Portman, going to spend time with a woman she’s going to play in a TV movie. Things get really intense as Portman’s character gets really into her role, and while speaking with CinemaBlend, the Oscar winner explained the humorous process of playing Elizabeth, and why acting can be “completely absurd” at times.
While Natalie Portman’s character Elizabeth takes her job as an actress very seriously, the real actress behind her finds the process quite humorous. While speaking with CinemaBlend’s Sean O’Connell during an interview about May December, she laughed about her character’s show “Norah’s Ark,” and opened up about nodding to the "silliness" of this job. She said:
I mean, it was the hardest thing not to make fun of it, because, of course, it’s so easy to laugh at myself. And you know, so much of what we do is completely absurd. So I think that was the challenge was to not laugh at it too much, but also to find those moments where we could nod to the silliness.
During the interview, O’Connell asked about a scene in the movie where Elizabeth responds to a compliment about “Norah’s Ark,” and how you can tell she has said this a thousand times. Portman's character takes her job so seriously, and she’s making a TV movie, so while filming these moments, the Black Swan star had fun nodding to some of the sillier elements of acting. As the actress stated, she really found her character's situation and mentality quite humorous, and it led to her thinking about how “completely absurd” acting can be.
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May December acts as a commentary about acting and performance, and the potential danger of someone playing out another person’s story. The project, which could likely become one of Portman’s best movies, follows an actress as she transforms into Gracie (Julianne Moore), the woman she’s studying. As Elizabeth spends more time with Moore’s character, her voice changes, her style shifts, and she falls deep down the rabbit hole of prepping for this character with a very complex and controversial past.
Throughout the film, there are funny moments of her taking the work too seriously and acting as if she’s a very prestigious performer preparing for a role that could win her an Oscar when she's actually working on a TV movie about a tabloid case. However, this process Portman’s character goes through is also intense and almost scary at times. The film balances comedy and drama extremely well, and that’s partially due to her incredible performance as Elizabeth.
Clearly, Natalie Portman enjoyed making this movie, and she found playing an actor to be an amusing experience. As she said, portraying Elizabeth had her contemplating how “absurd” her job can be, and she enjoyed nodding to the “silliness” that comes with acting. However, she also turns in an incredible dramatic performance as a woman who falls deeply into character.
Overall, May December, Natalie Portman and her co-stars, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton, are receiving tons of praise for their film, and it’s looking like it could become one of Netflix’s best movies. Todd Haynes’ movie is such a fascinating look into a woman preparing to play a role that focuses on an incredibly controversial couple, and the lengths she goes to to find the “truth” is both haunting and even funny at times.
To see this complex, and at times humorous, performance from Natalie Portman, you can stream May December with a Netflix subscription.
