Natalie Portman Plays Jacqueline Kennedy in “Jackie”

Oscar-winner Natalie Portman plays Jacqueline Kennedy in “Jackie,” which was featured at the Toronto Film Festival and has been picked up for theatrical release. Director Pablo Larraín retells this story of the young First Lady, only 34 when she entered the White House. Her grace and poise and elegance made her an instant icon. Structuring his film around Theodore H. White’s LIFE magazine interview with the First Lady, just a week after the assassination of her husband, it covers her return to the White House, arrangements for the President’s funeral, and accompanying her husband’s coffin to Arlington Cemetery. The Chilean filmmaker told Vanity Fair he would not have considered making the film without Portman.

“All the films I made before, like Neruda, are movies about male characters,” explains the filmmaker. “So I had to connect with things I never connected before and I did it in a very personal way. . .I talked to my mother , and, from the international worldwide aspect, Kennedy was like the one and only queen that lived in this country. . .a queen without a throne.”