Sarah Lane

Studio rebuts claims by Natalie Portman's ballet double

A Hollywood studio has denied claims by a ballet dancer that Natalie Portman performed only a small proportion of the dance moves for her Academy Award-winning performance in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.

American Ballet Theatre soloist Sarah Lane, Portman's ballet double for the psychological thriller, said at the weekend that she had been victim of a cover-up designed to help Portman's Oscar chances by convincing voters the actor had learned to dance like a professional soloist in just a few months.

"We were fortunate to have Sarah there to cover the more complicated dance sequences and we have nothing but praise for the hard work she did," said studio Fox Searchlight in a statement. "However, Natalie herself did most of the dancing featured in the final film."

Lane earlier told Entertainment Weekly that film-makers had digitally grafted Portman's face onto her body for many of the complicated moves.

"On the full body shots, I'd say 5% are Natalie," Lane said, adding: "all the other shots are me."

She continued: "They wanted to create this idea in people's minds that Natalie was some kind of prodigy or so gifted in dance and really worked so hard to make herself a ballerina in a year and a half or the movie, basically because of the Oscar.

"It's demeaning to the profession and just to me. I've been doing this for 22 years ... Can you become a concert pianist in a year and a half, even if you're a movie star?"

"I mean, from a professional dancer's standpoint, she doesn't look like a professional ballet dancer at all and she can't dance in pointe shoes. And she can't move her body, she's very stiff."

The dancer's comments came in response to an LA Times interview with the actor's choreographer partner Benjamin Millepied last week in which the latter suggested that Portman had performed most of the vital dance moves.

"It was so believable, it was fantastic, that beautiful movement quality, " said Millepied. "There are articles now talking about her dance double that are making it sound like she did a lot of the work, but really, she just did the footwork, and the fouettés, and one diagonal [phrase] in the studio. Honestly, 85% of that movie is Natalie."

Portman herself has refused to comment on the controversy. However, she told Entertainment Weekly in November that she had tried to do "as much as possible".

"I do have a double for the complicated turning stuff,' she said. "It was not anything I ever could have done in a year, nothing I could've caught up with. But I think it was just better for all of us if I did as much as possible."