Natalie Portman: Time’s Up stopping operations is heartbreaking and painful
10 May 2023, 21:48
The organisation was founded in the wake of the #MeToo movement and continues as the Time’s Up Legal Defence Fund.
Natalie Portman said that sexual harassment non-profit Time’s Up “dissipating” has been “really heartbreaking” and “painful”.
The Black Swan actress, 41, was vocal in her support for the organisation, which was founded in the wake of the #MeToo movement, along with other Hollywood figures.
Portman told the Hollywood Reporter: “It was really, really heartbreaking that Time’s Up dissipated the way it did. I think a lot of people made mistakes, but mistakes are deadly for activism.”
She added that understanding “imperfection” and “having a little bit more shades of grey might actually let us get to more progress”.
Portman also said: “There was something so powerful about just gathering women with similar experiences and sharing and so many amazing things have spun off it that I think those relationships have persisted and have turned into incredible other projects, but it still is painful that Time’s Up doesn’t exist anymore as it was.”
In 2018, the Time’s Up Legal Defence Fund began which provided legal defence for sexual violence victims.
Time’s Up leader Roberta Kaplan resigned over fallout from her work advising New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over alleged sexual harassment, according to a 2021 New York Times report, and the organisation subsequently announced a “reset”.
Five years on this January, the organisation said it has shifted the remaining funds to the independently administered Time’s Up Legal Defence Fund, and was stopping other operations.
Portman also took part in one of the many Women’s Marches being held across the country on the anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president in 2018.
The actress – who rose to fame in Leon: The Professional for her portrayal of a twelve-year-old who sees her character’s family murdered before she gets taken in by a professional hitman – said her relationship with the 1994 thriller is “complicated”.
She added: “It’s a movie that’s still beloved, and people come up to me about it more than almost anything I’ve ever made, and it gave me my career, but it is definitely, when you watch it now, it definitely has some cringey, to say the least, aspects to it.”
Elsewhere, Portman is set to appear in Angel City, a three-part documentary series exploring the first year of National Women’s Soccer League club Angel City, this month.
The Los Angeles-based football club has seen tennis player Serena Williams, Portman and singer Christina Aguilera among its investors.
