'Black Swan' Cover-up Denied by Filmmakers

By Christine Fenno Posted Mar 27th 2011 12:36PM

An allegation by Sarah Lane, a soloist with the American Ballet Theatre who worked on the filming of 'Black Swan' as Natalie Portman's dance double, has prompted Fox Searchlight to issue a statement about the controversy.

Lane recently claimed her body is what moviegoers see in most of the film's ballet sequences, and she estimated that Portman did about "5 percent" of the dancing seen in the acclaimed drama. The lifelong ballerina has scoffed at the idea that an actress could train for just a year and achieve the level of expertise Portman's character exhibits on screen.

The filmmakers couldn't disagree more, insisting that Portman, who won an Oscar last month for her demanding role, deserves "most" of the credit for the performance.

"We were fortunate to have Sarah there to cover the more complicated dance sequences and we have nothing but praise for the hard work she did," the studio said, according to EW.com. "However, Natalie herself did most of the dancing featured in the final film."

Portman, who trained hard for her 'Black Swan' role, has made no comment yet about Lane's accusation. However, the film's choreographer, Benjamin Millepied, with whom Portman is expecting a child, defends his leading lady's dancing.

"Honestly, 85 percent of that movie is Natalie," he told the Los Angeles Times recently.

Portman did admit to a body double for difficult shots in a November interview, but she has not drawn attention to who it was, or indicated how much of her character's dancing on the screen is actually another performer's body.

Tags: black swan, natalie Portman

Comments

(63)

Sunday 27 March

By billl

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A professional ballet dancer can discern a pro from a novice by body attitude, which takes many years to obtain. If the line is correct it's not Portman.

By Ralph Zuccaro

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The only thing Natalie "won" in that Piece of CRAP, was getting pregnant by Malpeter!!!! While Lane was dancing she was Humping the dance ER,SEX coach!!!!You call that ACTING by Natalie???? That whole group of "film makers", Producers, Directors was one of the BIGGEST FIXES in the ACADEMY HISTORY- Its been done before --With that insider group that"selects" which of "their OWN' to give that award to-

By Luca

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If it was a single take gig sure. But when you get multiple takes etc to get it right, well it is very easy to get it right.

Monday 28 March

By Sid Lives

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Whether she used a double or not, why do you care? Its a movie. Whats the difference between that and an actress using a body double to do nude scenes. Or for the sake of conversation, stunt doubles. The finished product is whats important. We are buying an image. Thats the movies.

By stu

u bad girl Natalie...give that oscar to Annette.

By m.paps

she won her oscar for her acting in the movie, not her dancing

By susan

Agree 100%..Oscar is for acting, not dancing...Her acting abilities of a ballerina going insane won the Oscar, not the dancing segments

By shirl

Portman earned that oscar for for acting, not her dancing,.. and from what I understand Kimberly Prosa also doubled for the actresses at one point, why isn't Miss Lane giving Ms. Prosa credit also..

Lets face it this was won on acting ability,

By Luz

She won the Oscar for her acting, not for her dancing!

By Meg

Actually, when they consider who the Oscar should go to, part of what they think about is how the actor/actress transformed themselves for the role. This is why you see a lot of actors/actresses who gained/lost weight or trained for a role get nominated. You can see this in nominees like Reese Witherspoon, Adrian Brody, Christian Bale, Matt Damon, and (obviously) Natalie Portman. So, while her acting was part of her performance, her dancing was too; she was given the Oscar for both.

By MrsKiwi

That was the worst movie and some of the worst acting I've ever seen. Natalie did more masturbating in that movie than she did dancing anyway. Maybe she won the Oscar for that, because we know she didn't win it for her acting.

By Linda Chambre

Why should she give that oscar to the fill in? It was her acting ability that gave her that oscar. The dancing sure was part of it, but could the dance double have gotten the oscar by herself? No!

By Me

Shame on you Natalie! Only a dancer whom have train for yrs can dance to perfection. How stupid did u think dancers are, that they can't see the differents. And shame on ur fianceeee for trying to discredit a dancer! The dancer deserves the oscar. Not the fraud,Natalie !!!

By kathy

Hey Me-the award was for ACTING, not dancing. Good thing you are not up for any spelling awards! The word is DIFFERENCE, not differents. And Ms. Lane's whining may have a way of keeping her from being a prima and may take away her soloist level.

By Starr

Shame on your for your bad spelling, really bad spelling.

By magyymae1

They don't give Oscars for dancing. Natalie got that for acting. Taking a year to learn ballet certainly gave her many skills since she was only learning certain steps and not an entire life's work of ballet.

By Jorge

Give it up Natalie! Your no Kidman,Theron,Watts or TAYLOR.
They pulled if off! and you should return the Oscar! Give it to Jennifer Lawerence, now thats TALENT

but Winters Bone sucked.

Tuesday 29 March

By CQCT

Give it to Jennifer Lawrence for talking in a terrible hick accent and portraying Ozark patrons as all being drug addicts who all hate each other and won't help a neighbor for anything? Yeah... good choice...

By ronleight

Apples and Oranges. On the one hand the dance double says that she did 95% of the "full body" dancing. The dance coach (her husband) says Portman did 85% of the "dancing" scenes. Now if 85% of the the dancing scenes were NOT full body shots, they are both saying the same thing. Now, while I've seen the movie, I couldn't tell you what the actual balance was, but until they start speaking the same language, this is a tempest in a tea-pot.

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