Natalie Portman's debut television role gave her a unique opportunity to explore intersectionality and oppression through the lens of a crime drama set in the 1960s.
Natalie Portman on 'Lady in the Lake', Family History, 'Bluey' Credit
The Academy Award winner explained that her role as Jewish investigative journalist Maddie Schwartz in the upcoming limited series Lady in the Lake, premiering July 19 on Apple TV+, presented an “interesting” topic in asking “what happens when oppressed people oppress others.”
“It is possible to be both oppressed and oppressor,” Portman told The Guardian. “And that sometimes, when we are seeking our own freedom, we don’t realize that we are stepping on someone else’s life.”
Based on the 2019 novel by Laura Lippman, Lady in the Lake centers on Maddie, a Baltimore housewife turned journalist who becomes obsessed with the mystery of two separate murders: 11-year-old Jewish girl Tessie Fine (Bianca Belle) and hardworking Black activist and mother Cleo Sherwood (Moses Ingram).
