Natalie Portman Says Her Career Makes Finding 'Ritual' in Family Life More Challenging

Natalie Portman's work as an actress makes her life more fulfilling, even if it makes coordinating her family life more difficult.

The Black Swan star opens up about motherhood in an intimate email exchange with author Jonathan Safran Foer that was published in The New York Times' T Magazineon Thursday, where she admits that the lack of routine with her 5-year-old son, Aleph Portman-Millepied, is "among the hardest things and best things about my work."

"I will never have the boredom or repetitiveness of an office," Portman, 35, writes. "But every job takes me to a new place with a new schedule, and it requires a reinvention of ritual each time, even more so with a family."

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"Every time I go on location, I have to figure out where to live, what activities are available for my son, how and when we will travel from our home base," the actress explains.

"When I’m not working," Portman says, "I’m pretty much exclusively with my family, so my rituals have to do with school, meal preparation, playdates, bedtime."

"We spend the weekend together as a family," she adds, sharing that she, her son, and husband Benjamin Millepied like to spend their downtime "usually somewhere in nature, often with friends who have children."

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Portman also offers nice little details about her son's hobbies in the emails, which range from Lego Batman, who "is alternately battling dinosaurs and performing a concert," to "loud Harry Potter music blasting in the house."

Meanwhile, Portman is keeping very busy professionally.

Besides staring in the upcoming Jackie Kennedy biopic, the actress is currently filming Annihailation with Hateful Eight's Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez. Portman commented that getting to work with so many talented females offered a refreshing change of pace from the typical male-dominated movie set.

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"I’m working with a group of actresses right now who are so kind and talented and funny," she says of Leigh and Rodriguez, as well as Tessa Thompson and Tuva Novotny, who also start in the film. "We did a scene last night, all night, in which every take was different, and each one real, and we laughed and froze our asses off and played. It was rare energy on a film because there were so many women together. Usually it’s all men and each of us is the only woman."

Sounds like a movie we want to see!

Watch the video below for the advice Cate Blanchett gave Portman about motherhood.

Natalie Portman Reveals Cate Blanchett's Advice on Motherhood

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