If you're anything like us, you were thrown for a bit of a loop when you saw the trailer for Jackie the first time and heard Natalie Portman's amazing accent. Apparently, we're not the only ones. Portman says that even her co-stars on the set weren't sure how to take the incredibly unique speaking style while she was on set.
The voice is very particular ... and the voice is different when she speaks publicly and privately. ... It was fun to do it for the first time. I remember at the beginning, actually, everyone was kind of [thinking], 'Uh oh. What's going on here? It's a little over-the-top or campy.'
The initial reviews of Jackie coming out of the Toronto Film Festival are that Natalie Portman does a stellar job as the first lady in the story which follows her in the events following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However, the thing that everybody is talking about the most is the way she sounds. Jacqueline Kennedy had a unique way of speaking, to say the least. It's one thing when that voice comes out of a person naturally when that's the only voice you've ever heard come from a woman. In the case of Natalie Portman, we know she's performing, which runs the risk of making the voice sound like parody, which is apparently what everybody thought on set, at least at first.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the final voice that we hear in Jackie actually is dialed back a bit because the director felt going all the way with the voice would make it too hard for people to connect with the character.
When we first saw the trailer it seemed like every time Natalie Portman said the word "Camelot" it came out a little different. Based on this description, that Jackie actually spoke differently in public than she did privately, it would seem those vocal shifts were intentional. On the one hand, it might be accurate to the character, but on the other, it still runs the risk of throwing an audience off because it doesn't necessarily feel right. We're more than curious to see how it all comes together in the film.
If the early reviews are any indication, we'll probably be talking more about Jackie as we head into the awards season. The film will hit theaters December 2.
