The “really, really obscene” 2005 song Natalie Portman became obsessed with
Natalie Portman has always come across as a very cultured sort; in fact, she was born into an artistic world, with a painter for a mother and an education involving modern dance and ballet. So it comes as a slight surprise that she apparently very much enjoys X-rated rap music.
But that is indeed the case, albeit in a way that makes her feel like she’s somehow doing something wrong. Nevertheless, Portman has most recently displayed her artistic side this year by making a movie called The Gallerist, which was a dark comedy thriller with Jenna Ortega about an art gallery owner whose business is failing until she decides to exhibit a dead body.
It didn’t do too well despite a fine supporting cast, including Catherine Zeta-Jones and Zach Galifianakis, and seemed to disappear almost as soon as it arrived, not standing as one of Portman’s finest efforts all told. Given last year she also starred in the ill-fated action adventure Fountain of Youth directed by Guy Ritchie, which cost $180million and got absolutely panned, it’s fair to say she could do with a hit.
She could do worse than go against some of the more arty stuff she’s done and lean back into crowd-pleasers like the Thor movies for Marvel, which gained her some rave reviews across four movies, and it was the MCU that also proved successful for her co-star on the 2009 film Brothers, Jake Gyllenhaal, who popped up in the latest Spider-Man instalment.
It was just after making that war drama that she confided in him about her love of rap that features a lot of swearing, telling him via Interview magazine, “I’ve mostly been listening to dirty rap lately. That’s sort of my scene. Really, really obscene hip hop. I love it so much. It makes me laugh, and then it makes me want to dance.”
She added, possibly unnecessarily, “I’ve been listening to ‘Wait (The Whisper Song)’ by the Ying Yang Twins a lot lately, where the lyrics are like, ‘Wait ’til you see my d**k’, which is just amazing because it’s whispered. I listen to it like I’m a five-year-old, like, ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe he just said that!’“
Perhaps she was just letting off steam after making the movie, which was a pretty hard-hitting affair co-starring Tobey Maguire about a man going off to fight in the war in Afghanistan, then presumed to have been killed in action, only to return to find his wife has shacked up with his brother (hence the title). No amount of naughty words in rap is going to help with that.
The movie was actually inspired by Homer’s The Odyssey, which, as film fans, we all know is about to be writ large on the big screen by the incomparable Christopher Nolan, in an epic, IMAX-filmed extravaganza packed with star names that had better be good, otherwise we may as well all just pack it in and watch Marvel movies instead.
Meanwhile, Portman will be starring in a few upcoming projects, most controversially a romantic comedy from Lena Dunham called Good Sex, to prep for which she may well want to listen to some more obscene hip hop, given it has been described as ‘steamy’.
