Personal Playlist: Natalie Portman is 'all over the place'

The actress listens to a lot of soul, hip-hop and classical.

When one asks actress Natalie Portman what she's currently listening to, immediately the memory flashes back to the classic scene in “Garden State.” If you've seen the movie, you know the one: Her character, Sam, is in a doctor's office waiting room when she starts up a conversation with Andrew, played by Zach Braff. Her character is raving about the Shins, and soon we're inside her head enjoying the band too.

Portman, who's generating Oscar buzz for her work as a ballerina in Darren Aronofsky's “Black Swan,” says that she's been looking back in music more than she is keeping up with trends. Currently in heavy rotation, she says, is “nothing new, although of new stuff, I like Antony, and Sufjan Stevens and Deerhunter. I also listen to a lot of hip-hop — but more older stuff, like Tribe and Jurassic 5 and the Roots.

“And I have a lot of soul [music], like Otis, Aretha, Jeff Buckley and a lot of classical. I'm really all over the place.”

—Amy Kaufman

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Photo: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[ExSinger]

I love Natalie, and even more now that I know she listens to Jeff Buckley. You are deep, my angel.

[lou]

adfasd

[JR Jake]

'All over the place' is called 'versatility and expected' where I come from. Tunnel vision is good if you are driving from the house to the store or work. When you have many stops, you make a lot of right and left turns. An actress or an actor who is worth their salt better be more than a student, they need to be prepared to be a teacher or mentor. This is NOT ONE STOP SHOPPING.

Life is not like that and anybody that wants to keep their blinders on, the less power to them. Natalie likes shades and varieties much like a few of us. You can never learn too much but the knowledge is not what is read but experienced many times. Natalie is doing what she wants to do, otherwise she would not be doing it. Leave the girl alone.

[Fleurette]

Good girl, a Jeff Buckley fan! I looove him. I think most peoples' taste in music is eclectic, spanning decades and genres. I know mine is. I also don't really listen to current pop music, mostly because it bores me. I think I stopped caring about that in high school. Once you hit the age where you're enough of an individual to discern your own taste in music, as opposed to whatever's being played on mtv, you're offically a grown up.