Natalie Portman on producing and voice acting in "Arco" | Variety Studio at TIFF

I know that you have been celebrating, or rather moviegoers have been celebrating 15 years since Black Swan. I was just curious, where do you keep your Oscar? I keep it in, like, hidden in the closet. Hello, you guys. First of all, congratulations. Thank you. This has been a road that you two actually have been on together for a significant amount of time. So what does it feel like to not only have had the great review from Cannes, Annecy, but now to be at TIFF with essentially a semi-new product, with the English language version of Arco. Natalie, I'll start with you. Well, it's been so incredible, and of course, Hugo is just so enormously talented, and he really has been working on this for years and years and years, and has put so much heart and soul and beauty into this project, which we're so proud of. And yes, it is exciting to debut the English language version now. Also, now I'm involved in a different way, because I was just involved as a producer before, and now I voice one of the characters as well, so it's exciting. And we have such an incredible cast with Will Ferrell, America Ferreira, Flea, Andy Samberg, myself, and incredible young actors playing the two lead children roles. Hugo, I mean, that idea, you know, you start this out, then Natalie comes on as a producer, now she's on as a voice with a second round of amazing voice actors. How does this all feel? Magic. In my best dream, it couldn't happen, you know? So, yeah, I'm blessed and honoured to have Natalie and all these crazy people that worked on that movie and made it as I wished at the very beginning. And the people that protected also the movie from the outside and helped me to bring it as far as I wanted. Tell me a little bit about your original vision. How did you first come to want to tell this story? It was in 2020, the world wasn't going that good, and I thought that science fiction always was telling something bad and inventing the world that we were living in, you know, now. And I thought that if we want good things to happen, we have to imagine them and we have to tell the story of what could be a good future. And that's what gave me the will and the energy to do this movie and to try to create energy and goodwill. I don't know if it's a good answer. No, it's a great answer. Because it's also what I think, you know, Natalie, you said you felt when you were first, you know, made aware of this project. How did it first come to you? Jamil Shmazdin, who's a dear friend of mine and who I work with also, was working with Hugo and his partner Felix with their company, Remembers, and told us about the project. And we watched a sort of very early... Work in progress? Yeah, work in progress, like very early kind of sketch of what it was. And it was so moving. And I remember Hugo describing it as a memory of the future. And I thought it was so beautiful as just a concept. And it's so lucky to get to be part, a small part of Hugo's grand vision, which is really, I think, inspiring for about hope and about imagination and the power of not being... Not seeing like a bad destiny and then just submitting to it, but seeing that there's a way to imagine a different future is very necessary right now. What was the experience for you to produce this? Because you haven't gotten to do that very often. This is project number two. What did it feel like to really be able to get in and get involved with Hugo in this way? It was really incredible. Sophie Maas, my partner in Mountaineer, I think was extremely hands-on with Hugo and Felix every day. And it's been beautiful to learn about animation from these masters of animation and also be part of this introduction of a great new talent to the world. Let's talk about animation for a second because animation is obviously something that I think we all, at times, grow up with, but there is also such a booming industry right now and a real re-appreciation of it, especially in the awards race. We saw such success for Flo last year. What is your hope in just continuing to elevate animation and get more audiences, older audiences, to get a chance to engage with a story like this? Do you want to answer? Go ahead. I don't know if I can answer to the whole question, but maybe I can answer with what animation is for me. I wanted to do an animation movie because it's the movies that made all of us, because that's what we have in common, the movies that we see when we are little kids. Most of the time, it's the movies that accompany us all our life and that we think about all our lives. As making a movie is so long and so intense, I knew that if I wanted to do a movie, I would do a movie for children because these are movies that we see not one time but a lot of times because children like to watch them over and over again. It goes deep into our symbolistic area. It builds us. So I wanted, in a way, to give symbols and stuff to make kids stronger for what will happen to them in the future because this is the role of fiction to me. It's to prepare the emotional muscle to what will arrive in life. Before we get back to the business, what is each of your favorite animated movies? That's a hard question. You can give me a few. As a kid, Lion King was very important to me. I think that was a big one for me. And now? Now I see the Miyazaki films like Spirited Away. I think as an adult, there's different things you're looking for in a film. You? All Miyazaki. I couldn't choose one. Dragon Ball Z, I think. It's not a feature film, but it's animation. Dragon Ball Z is also incredibly important in culture. I love that as an answer. To that same idea, it's things that we love as kids, but we are taking it more seriously as a business and continuing to grow that. Natalie, for you, how do you see your position as a producer being able to get more attention on a movie like this? It's really incredible to get to be behind something I believe in so much, which I think Hugo's art and his style and his way of storytelling is so magical and so unique. I hadn't seen anything like it, so I think it's really lucky to get to be part of bringing that to people. And like Hugo was saying, they are the movies that you see the most, and now having kids myself, it's the movies I as a parent see the most too, because you watch it 40 times with your kid. And so it has this double way of entering kids' minds and parents' minds at the same time and unlocking different things. So it does feel like a very powerful influence on people in a positive way. And also about the growth of industry, I think animation is growing a lot because also as it's drawn, it gives a sensitive truth. Not the real truth, but the truth as we feel it. And I think now, because of AI, we need this sharing sensitivity. And how do you say that? I forgot. Yeah, like human touch. There's an interesting empathetic nature about animation, even though it's in some way kind of different than live action. I think there is a different kind of sensitivity that is created. It's also because it's drawn, it comes by the hand, so there are a lot of errors. And I think we recognize more in others' errors than in others' success. So I think it's a good way to recognize ourselves in someone. Natalie, what was your experience of voicing Mickey? What was it like? Obviously you're a fan of the movie, and then you're now in the booth. It was incredible to get to do it. Obviously I had the great example before me of Alma Jodorowsky's performance in the French version, so I had that as a template. And then it was really fun to get to do Mickey with Mark Ruffalo, who I love so much, who's one of my favorite people and favorite actors. And so to have our voices blended, it was really surreal to listen to it for the first time because I know his voice so well. I obviously know my own voice so well. So to hear this blend of voices for Mickey was really exciting and wild. That is such a cool, unique thing, to have the two voices blended together like that. How did you initially come to that concept? I've been drawing this character since 10 years, and finding the good voice was really tough because I don't know if you... There's a story in history in France. They directed a Tintin film in the 60s, and getting out of the cinema, they asked the children what they thought about the movie, and one children said, I didn't like it because I didn't recognize the voice of the book. So every time I was trying to find the voice of Mickey, I was thinking about this little boy in the 60s. And no, it was crazy to have so many talented people to give the sound, the voice of this character that I love so much and who's in every work I do, I think. So it's really important, and it was super important for me to have a perfect voice. I like both versions, which is crazy also, because it's easy to fail. Natalie, you mentioned Mark being one of your favorites. You guys are now doing another project together. You're with Lena Dunham doing Good Sex. How much fun are you having with this crew of people, too? It's the best, best, best experience. It was just Lena and Mark and Rashida Jones and Meg Ryan. I mean, we had just the most wonderful, wonderful humans, and Tucker Pillsbury, who's also, it's his first film, and he's just incredible. And it just gives the evidence that people can be really talented and really kind and really fun all at once, you know? And it's just kind of the only way we want to work anymore. It's the same with Hugo and Felix. It's people you love being around, and they're also the most talented people. It's just like, why would you do it any other way? Absolutely. And I will say, every time I see Meg Ryan in New York, you're just thinking, you're like, oh, well, this is absolutely going to be a masterpiece. She's a genius and the most fun, so we're so lucky. I know that you have been celebrating, or rather moviegoers have been celebrating 15 years since Black Swan. I was just curious, where do you keep your Oscar? I keep it in, like, hidden in the closet. I feel very lucky to have had that experience and to have been recognized, and I think it's, like, you know, good not to put too much meaning and importance into that. It's more the experience of working with people, the experience of creating that is, like, the real treasure, and, you know, anyway. We're just going to chase the next one for Arco. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to ask also, you have really expanded your entire portfolio as a creative, also into other avenues like sport. Yes. What has it been like to be a part owner of a sports team and to really see just the other places that you can have influence? Well, I think that it's been beautiful and joyful to get to explore these different worlds, like learning about sports is a whole new environment, a whole new set of skills to learn. Same with, like, entering into animation, a whole new world, a whole new set of skills, and it's exciting to be able to have new experiences after working for more than 30 years in this industry to be able to be lit up and find these new avenues. And like you were saying, has these very positive impacts and influences in the world that I see the power of women's sports to completely change culture, and I see the power of animation also to change culture that you, like you were talking about, the different kind of empathetic responses that you get from watching animation, it really feels so exciting to explore different tools to reach people. Listen, I love Natalie Portman and her, like, excitement, her world-changing era. I'm so down for it. Thank you. I'm really looking forward to now getting to experience this film in another way, so thank you guys so much for coming in. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Nice seeing you.