Natalie Portman

"Where I live, nobody whos fourteen is having sex and doing major drugs. And I think if you see it in the movies, you may be influenced by it. I think its so important to preserve your innocence."

"Factory farming of animals will be one of the things we look back on as a relic of a less-evolved age."

"I dont mean to criticize anyone in any way that I wouldnt criticize myself. I think people should have fun, and have a good time, and enjoy the luck that we have to be lazy and dwell in consumerism. But I think that its a balance. And our job as actors is empathy. Our job is to imagine what someone elses life is like. And if you cant do that in real life, if you cant do that as a human being, then good luck as an actor.... I just think its an important thing to engage in the world. And its just too easy not to in our society."

"It was wonderful playing a young queen with so much power. I think it will be good for young women to see a strong woman of action who is also smart and a leader."

"It’s weird that there are so many people at Harvard who do amazing things outside the classroom. It just so happens that people like to watch what I do."

"I’ve taught at Harvard, Dartmouth and Vassar, and I’ve had the privilege of teaching a lot of very bright kids. There are very few who are as inherently bright as Natalie is, who have as much intellectual horsepower, who work as hard as she did. She didn’t take a single thing for granted."