In some exciting post-Christmas news, Natalie Portman is engaged and expecting a baby! But who is this guys she’s marrying?
Portman met French ballet dancer Benjamin Millepied (pronounced MEEL-pee-yeh) on the set of her hit psycho-ballet-thriller Black Swan. Millepied was a choreographer for some of the stunning dance scenes, so he had plenty of time to get up close and personal with Natalie. He even recieved some time in front of the camera with Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman as their dancing partner.
Natalie Portman is principally an actress, but she studied ballet seriously for a number of years. For several years Natalie Portman and Black Swan director Darren Aronfsky have wanted to work on a ballet movie together. They were finally able to realize that, but Natalie had some catching up to do with her ballet moves, something she did with the help of Millepied.
He described to NY Magazine what it was like working with Portman:
Natalie was doing cardio every day, swimming in the morning. Even when we went to bed at eleven, she’d get up super-early, work out two hours before getting back on set, just to get herself going for the day, and to tone her arms. It was really very impressive discipline. She had a right-hand person to make sure she was always warm, not going to hurt herself, to remind her of everything she’d learned throughout the process. To me, what was very much a relief was that Natalie was a sponge — the first class, I gave her very strict basics about the body, and you have to do it every day for the body to catch on, and I was really happy between the first and second day she assimilated extremely quickly. She has that spongelike intelligence with her body. She’s obviously smart, but there are a lot of smart people who can’t move.
5’2″ Natalie lost a whopping 20 pounds from her already small frame while training for this grueling role. She’s since gained the weight back, championed healthy eating to the press, and now she’s eating for two!
Along with being an ace choreographer (he has an international reputation), the French born Millepied is also a principle dancer with the New York City Ballet (the same ballet company that Jenifer Ringer dances for.)
