Natalie Portman hits out at the double standard women have to adhere to at the Cannes Film Festival
Portman has spoken out against the traditional gender roles forced on men and women, and took aim at the very film festival hosting her.
Natalie Portman has ruffled feathers at Cannes Film Festival after she claimed the event pushes differing expectations on men and women's behavior.
The 41-year-old Oscar winner got real with the media during a press conference to discuss her latest project, May December.
The film premiered at Cannes on May 20 and Portman was joined on a panel by her castmates and director Todd Haynes when she unleashed on the French event for its stereotypical treatment.
"The whole film is so much about performance and the different roles we play in different environments, for different people, for ourselves, even," Portman said, as per PEOPLE.
"This aspect of, even here — the different ways we as women are expected to behave at this festival even compared to men.
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"[As in] how we're supposed to look, how we're supposed to carry ourselves.
"The expectations are different on you all the time and it affects how you behave, whether you're buying into it, whether you're rejecting it or whether you're doing something in between."
She added: "You're definitely defined by the social structures upon you."
The Star Wars actor added the concept of challenging traditional roles is 'something I'm definitely curious about and interested in'.
UNILAD reached out to the Cannes Film Festival for comment.
According to IMDb, the film kicks off two decades after a married couple, played by Hannibal's Julianne Moore and Riverdale's Charles Melton, had their notorious tabloid romance bandied about in the papers in a scandal that gripped the nation.
Their union, which has a significant age gap, starts to buckle under the pressure of a second wind of intense scrutiny when an actor, played by Portman, arrives with the plan to do a deep dive into their lives as research for a film about their past.
Despite the movie challenging traditional relationship roles and, on a larger scale, our roles within the world, Portman told Variety she was thrilled to take part in the flick.
"It’s incredible to get to be part of a film like this, which has two complex women characters who are full of delicious conflicts," she said.
Her co-star, 62-year-old Julianne Moore, also opened about the role reversals that take place in the film.
"An age gap is one thing, but a relationship between an adult and a child is a different thing entirely," she said, as per the Daily Mail.
"When is 'age inappropriate'?"
She then went on to clarify what she meant.
"It’s when people are in different places developmentally, when someone is not an adult," Moore said.
"This is why we have boundaries around that.
"The reason why this movie feels so dangerous watching it is because people don’t know where anyone’s boundaries are. It feels scary."
For the record, Charles Melton, the actor who plays her love interest, is 32 years old.
In May 2023, Netflix acquired the North American distribution rights for May December, Deadline reports.
So expect it on a TV screen near you soon.
Topics: Cannes Film Festival, Film and TV, Entertainment, Celebrity
Rachel Lang