Natalie Portman says Star Wars was one of her earliest lessons in failure

Almost three decades later, Natalie Portman can look at the reactions to Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace as a teachable moment. “I had lucky early experiences of failure,” Portman said in a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar, published on Monday. “I know I’ve been also very lucky to have a lot of successes that have balanced it out. But I mean, for example, my first film, The Professional, got horrible reviews and had no box office. And then I made Star Wars. I was 16, and that got murdered. It was a huge success financially, but all of it was, ‘They ruined the franchise. None of them can act. They all suck.'” She’s certainly not exaggerating about the responses from fans and critics to The Phantom Menace, in which she made her first appearance as Padmé Amidala, Queen of Naboo and—spoiler for a 27-year-old movie—eventual mother of twins Luke and Leia. Critics called the 1999 movie disappointing and emotionally thin, with an “oddly underdeveloped” screenplay. Still, it went on to gross $924 million worldwide.