So I’m not the only lady who doesn’t play Mrs. Nice Jew no mo’.
In the February issue of Elle UK, cover girl and sabra Natalie Portman lets us know that we’re as unlikely to see her onscreen cast as Anne Frank as Golda Meir:
“I’ve always tried to stay away from playing Jews. I get like twenty Holocaust scripts a month, but I hate the genre.”
A teensy-weensy role as a young Hasidic wife in New York, I Love You, a collaborative, star-filled homage to the Big Apple, is her first concession to her casting rule because it “really intrigued” her.
Natalie’s always been big on Hebrew pride, so it can’t be that she’d refuse a Jewish role out of spite for her peeps; I’m guessing it’s just high time someone created a female Jewish character who isn’t a bony, mean Mrs. Ari or a concentration camp survivor. I will work on it, Nat. Tell your agent to call me.
Here’s the trailer from New York, I Love You, which in which Nat appears in for barely an eight of a second:
I totally agree with her. I know the Holocaust happened and we must never forget how and why it happened but I’m with you and Natalie. I’d rather see Jews portrayed as strong characters or at least real people rather than kitchy or neurotic or in a concentration camp. Don’t get me wrong, I love Woody Allen but I’d rather his characters not represent all Jewish characters in Cinema.