Natalie Portman feels Time's Up has united actresses

Actor believes that she has only just now started befriending other females of the industry

There are only a handful of female stars who get along with each other. Be it Hollywood or Bollywood, actresses making headlines for being engaged in cat fights is no new news. In the same light, superstar Natalie Portman believes that she has only started befriending other women in the entertainment industry. Believe it or not, she started her acting career 25 years ago!

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In an interview with Vanity Fair, Portman confessed, "I've been working for 25 years and I've never had friendships in my industry until now. You're usually the only girl in the movie."

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She said that the birth of the Time's Up movement last year united many women and made them sympathise with their peers. The 37-year-old actor added, "It's made us come together. We're actively gathering. Just the power of us getting to know other women in our own industry and sharing information that can help us be safer, more productive and more successful."

Brie Larson who stars as Captain Marvel in the film of the same name terms this coming together of women as a "sisterhood". Observing Portman's efforts to bring women close, she said, "Natalie reached out and I thought, 'Why don't I know the other women in my industry?'. Within days we were sitting in circles talking. We learned that our personal experiences were not so personal. We had all gone through similar things and through that shared experience we could identify tangible things we could influence for positive change."

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Reese Witherspoon too, has now befriended the Black Swan actor - who is also producing her next film Pale Blue Dot.

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Speaking of Portman, Witherspoon shared, "Natalie is full of incredible ideas. She'll text me and a couple of the other girls, 'I have a crazy idea!' And they're always great. And then I'll say, 'Hold up, how are we going to pay for this?' And somebody else is, 'How are we going to execute this?' We all have our different proficiencies. It is sort of a SWAT team. She is our instigator. Our catalyst."

But according to the Thor star, the reckoning was a long time coming. Making her debut in 1994 with Leon while she was young, Portman didn't really have to experience the same kind of sexual harassment as other actresses did.

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However, she explained, "I was able somehow not to have an experience like that, so it's definitely a weird, privileged place to hold. Learning what so many women have been through and were going through right next to me such as Ashley Judd, Mira Sorvino, Uma Thurman was completely shocking. These were women that I admired so much and felt lucky to work with."

The Closer star admitted that she had heard rumours about Harvey Weinstein misbehaving with many women but she didn't know who they were until recently. She continued, "We're in a culture where it is regular for men to behave badly and for women to be hurt. But it is complete shift because all of us were like, 'Oh, God, he's a bad dude'. Now it's, 'No, this is abusive behavior — not just a bad dude'."

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Portman is currently working with fellow actresses to take a stand against powerful men exploiting women in Hollywood.

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