On the “Black Swan” set with director Darren Aronofsky (
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outside the Joyce Theater rehearsal studio with choreographer turned beau Benjamin Millepied (
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LA premiere with co-star Mila Kunis, with whom she shares onscreen kisse (WireImage)
Lingering on shots of bloody feet, broken toenails and ripped skin, “Black Swan” combines the raw brutality of Aronofsky’s Oscar-nominated 2008 film “The Wrestler” with the fairy-tale aspects of his ambitious 2006 flop “The Fountain.” The result is a stunning work that has already divided film-festival audiences as to whether it is a gorgeous allegory or merely an overwrought indulgence.
Either way, it is sure to be a frequent nominee in the coming awards season, partly because Portman immersed herself so thoroughly in the role of Nina Sayers. All the way down to her first onscreen lesbian makeout session.
The highly anticipated scene has been the talk of the blogosphere for months. Rumors that Portman and Kunis knocked back shots to prepare for the big moment were asserted, than denied, then re-asserted. They remain unconfirmed.
“I hope they did. I know I would have,” says producer Scott Franklin, who has worked closely with Aronofsky since the director’s 1998 feature debut “Pi.”
Franklin says the anticipation of the scene — a fairly graphic few minutes that has gotten the movie tons of pre-release buzz — was harder than the actual filming.
“The buildup to that day, which was at the end of the shoot, was tougher than the actual shoot day, although [Portman and Kunis] may feel otherwise,” Franklin tells The Post, laughing. “We just made the day as fun as possible. They had fun with it — they would laugh between takes and be like, ‘Oh my god, we have to do it again’ when the cameras started rolling.”
“It was awkward and we laughed,” Portman says of the steamy scene. “It was strange, but it’s something you just sort of throw yourself into.”
Another thing Portman threw herself into was ballet. To pull off the part — an emotionally fragile ballerina who cracks under the pressure of performing the Swan Queen — she put herself through a year of rigorous study with dancer Mary Helen Bowers, formerly of the New York City Ballet. (See sidebar.) Bowers was able to teach Portman, who had danced as a child, enough technique to pull off the sequences that choreographer Benjamin Millepied (now Portman’s boyfriend) created for her.
So much of Nina’s character is portrayed through dance that, although Portman had a body double, the actress believed she needed to do much of the dancing herself to convincingly play the role.
“It’s incredibly challenging, trying to pick ballet up at 28. Even if you’ve taken dance lessons before, you just don’t realize how much goes into it at the elite level,” Portman says. “Every small gesture has to be so specific and so full of lightness and grace.”
During filming, Portman sustained a rib injury, and a scene in the movie in which she is treated by a physical therapist who pushes her rib back into place is the real thing. Aronofsky asked if she would stay in character while undergoing treatment.
The already-petite Portman lost about 20 pounds for the part — in part from training and in part from a strict vegan diet that consisted of small meals throughout the day, says Bowers. In the film, her spine pokes through her skin and her collarbones protrude like curtain rods.
Her ultra-restricted diet was just another sacrifice for the role.
“I’m a very short person, and you’re supposed to look very long,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “And you look longer when you don’t have the bulk on you — which is, like, sick. The whole thing, I’m aware that it’s sick.”
Although Aronofsky began thinking about making a ballet movie 15 years ago, and asked Portman to be in it almost a decade ago, he now has come to see “Black Swan” as a companion piece to “The Wrestler.” Both movies depict the intense punishment that wrestlers and ballerinas put themselves through. And both films show the inner world of intense, somewhat arcane professions.
“Some people call wrestling the lowest of art forms, and some call ballet the highest of art forms, yet there is something elementally the same,” Aronofsky says. “Mickey Rourke as a wrestler was going through something very similar to Natalie Portman as a ballerina.”
In fact, “Black Swan” screenwriter Mark Heyman says that in an early draft of “The Wrestler,” Randy “The Ram” Robinson fell in love with a ballerina instead of a stripper.
“That lasted for a hot second,” Heyman tells The Post. “But then we realized that was probably too much for one movie.”
Aronofsky’s fascination with ballet was inspired by his sister Patti, who danced as a child. When he read a screenplay by Andres Heinz called “The Understudy,” an off-Broadway murder mystery, he was intrigued. He tried to adapt the film to ballet, but because the understudy dynamic is not the same in the world of dance as it is in theater, he kept running into roadblocks.
He put it aside, but never forgot it. Years later, when he saw a ballet production of “Swan Lake,” he realized he could use the duality of the White Swan and the Black Swan to explore the themes in “Understudy” and use ballet as a backdrop. He gave the screenplay to Heyman, a co-producer on “The Wrestler,” to work on.
Heyman knew absolutely nothing about ballet, but, as he says, “When Darren asks you to work on a screenplay for him, there is only one right answer.”
That’s how he found himself in the American Ballet Theatre studios for three months, immersing himself in the beautiful and brutal world of professional dance.
Aronofsky was sure he wanted to incorporate “Swan Lake” into the movie, and after a few attempts, Heyman realized that the movie itself should be the story of the famed ballet piece.
The classic dance, based on Russian and German folklore, tells of a princess trapped in a white swan’s body who can only be returned to human form by the love of a man. When a prince falls in love with the princess swan, an evil black swan seduces him. In the ballet, one dancer plays both the white and black swans.
“We decided not to let it be part of the film, but to be the film. And so that’s what I did,” Heyman says. Everything in the story has its counterpart in the ballet. The arc was going to be that of someone who begins the film as the White Swan and the challenges inherent in becoming the Black Swan.”
Heyman was always good at constructing simple stories and pulling away extraneous plot lines.
In fact, he got a job with Aronofsky by doing just that. In 2005, the Brooklyn-born filmmaker guest-lectured at one of Heyman’s New York University grad-school film classes. When Aronofsky asked students to explain their films, everyone gave long-winded answers — except Heyman.
“My film is about growing up,” Heyman said. Aronofsky liked his simple answer and after class the two got to talking. Five minutes later, Aronofsky offered Heyman a job. A few months later, he became Aronofsky’s assistant. Now the 30-year-old screenwriter is watching his first script garner Oscar buzz.
He says the hardest part of writing was to create a movie about ballet that would appeal to folks who don’t care about dance.
“I tried to pick things that were more universal for Nina’s story. The fact that she starts out very tightly wound and introverted and needs to break through that shell is something people can understand without caring about dance,” Heyman says. “And her relationship with her mother, needing to step out from under her protective shadow, is a universal relationship.”
And a girl on girl sex scene? Does that help draw audiences as well.
“Yes,” Heyman says, laughing. “That helps, too.”
stefanie.cohen@nypost.com