111. Natalie Portman: How to Know When to Say YES

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Speaker 3 Welcome, friends. Back to We Can Do Hard Things.
Today.

Speaker 1 My boss is here.

Speaker 3 Yes, Abby's boss is here.

Speaker 2 She's going to call her boss. Oh, that's right.
I was like, me?

Speaker 3 I know that's what I thought. Me? Obviously, I'm here.

Speaker 3 No, Natalie Portman. She's Abby's boss because she's the big boss of Angel City.
She's big boss. Yeah, the soccer team.
Yeah. Angel City, of which Natalie Portman is the big boss.

Speaker 3 And you're a little boss.

Speaker 1 I'm little boss. She's big boss.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So big boss is here today. Natalie Portman.
Natalie Portman is an Academy Award-winning actress, director, author, and activist.

Speaker 3 This summer, Portman will be on the big screen, returning to the Marvel universe as Jane Jane Foster in Thor, Love and Thunder.

Speaker 3 Natalie appeared in Jackie, in which she starred as First Lady Jacqueline F.

Speaker 3 Kennedy and was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA Award, and won the Critics' Choice Award.

Speaker 3 Portman devotes her time to several humanitarian causes with an emphasis on supporting women and girls.

Speaker 3 She is also a founder of National Women's Soccer League team Angel City Football Club, Woot, Woot.

Speaker 2 Woot, Woot.

Speaker 3 Her book, Natalie Portman's Fables, is a New York Times bestseller. Portman is a Harvard graduate with a degree in psychology, and she studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Speaker 3 Natalie, welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 3 We wanted to start with the story about Abby's speech at Time's Up and your reaction to it. and how that played into your formation of Angel City.

Speaker 3 Can you just tell us that story from your perspective?

Speaker 2 Well, thank you both for having me on. I love you both so, so much.
And you've both added so much to my life already. So I'm so grateful to know you.

Speaker 2 I can't believe I know you as well as have you as my role models. But

Speaker 2 I think there's an even earlier Abby influence story on Time's Up that you might not even be aware of, was that your Wolfpack speech at Barnard was circulated among all the women very early on and everyone started calling us, like each other, Wolfpack within our group in Times Up.

Speaker 2 That was probably

Speaker 2 why

Speaker 2 they

Speaker 2 wanted you to speak in the first place at our conference. That was already so

Speaker 2 influential and impressive, I think, just as just a way of thinking of other women and a new way of operating with other women.

Speaker 2 I think after having been socialized for so long to see

Speaker 2 competition and

Speaker 2 different kinds of modeling of behavior between women, a way that we could compete together instead of against each other was pretty exciting.

Speaker 2 And then when I heard you speak, and we all heard you speak at the Times Up conference that year, it was

Speaker 2 mind-blowing to hear your experiences as

Speaker 2 virtuoso star best athlete in your field in the world and your experiences

Speaker 2 when you retired of

Speaker 2 being uncertain about your future and how different that was for your male counterparts and to understand that this very central cultural field, athletics, I guess, in general, could be so,

Speaker 2 have such different valuing of male and female players really just

Speaker 2 blew my mind and really

Speaker 2 started me and a lot of other people thinking. So, anyway, thank you again for that.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it forever, but it really

Speaker 2 changed so many of the way many of us have looked at the world.

Speaker 1 Well, and then two years ago, I get this random IG direct message from Natalie Portman, folks. She says, can I call you? And I'm like,

Speaker 1 yes, Natalie Portman, here's my number. And so then you call me and then you told me two years ago, and this must have been a year-ish later since the Time's Up event.

Speaker 1 And you tell me that you're starting Angel City FC in Los Angeles, and you asked me to be a part of the investor ownership group. And I just was floored.
I was so beyond.

Speaker 1 And I just think it's so important for people to understand, though that this is the first majority women-owned soccer franchise for girls, obviously, and women,

Speaker 1 you also started it for boys. Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, well,

Speaker 2 my son, who's 11 now,

Speaker 2 was an incredible influence and inspiration in wanting to create this.

Speaker 2 He got so into the the Women's World Cup, I think he was around seven or eight. And he had the experience of being, I guess he was like five or six at the men's World Cup when France won.

Speaker 2 My husband's French, so it was like the greatest thing that could ever happen to a French child.

Speaker 2 And then a couple years later, the U.S. women win the Women's World Cup.
And I mean, it was waking up in the middle of the night, all hours. And I had to confront my own bias because

Speaker 2 the first time I saw him put on a women's game, I was like, oh God, he's going to realize it's a women's game because it was all on, I think it was like Fubo or something that has like all the soccer games.

Speaker 2 And it just says, like,

Speaker 2 France versus Germany. And I was like, he's not going to realize that it's women.
He's going to realize it's women. He's going to turn it off.
And he

Speaker 2 was like, amazing, the best players in the world.

Speaker 2 Totally, of course, did not matter at all to him. And I was like, oh, this is my weird stuff from the way I grew up that I'm putting on to it.
And of course he does. He loves soccer.

Speaker 2 He wants to see the best players in the world. If it's a bad game, he'll turn it off.
If it's a men's game or a women's game, if it's a great game, he will watch it like,

Speaker 2 you know, in the most participatory, like heart-filled way.

Speaker 2 And that's when I was like, oh,

Speaker 2 every kid should have the opportunity to see players of all genders be virtuosic. You know, what a dream to get to identify with, idolize people from all backgrounds, from all genders.
Um,

Speaker 2 and made it maybe like, oh, this, this needs more amplification. Like, why does the World Cup get this kind of amplification?

Speaker 2 And then national women's league games don't get the same kind of amplification.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and that teaches little boys not to respect girls in insidious ways. So when they watch

Speaker 3 people who are women achieve at things that they love, it helps early on even the playing field of how we perceive each other.

Speaker 2 Well, I think also we know that as girls growing up, we've been asked to get excited by and identify with and idolize male athletes. And that seems totally possible.

Speaker 2 Like I could grow up thinking that, you know, Michael Jordan was great. And I was never like, I can't do that because we're not the same gender.
So why, why not have the converse be true?

Speaker 2 It doesn't make any sense. Yeah.
You said that girls know their power.

Speaker 4 We need the boys to know it. It's like we're not trying to empower girls so much as we're trying to stop the world from getting in the way of girls' power.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Well put.

Speaker 3 Yes. That's good.
Before we move on from the soccer, I just do have to say that that day that you called Abby,

Speaker 3 I have never in the history of our marriage sat with you so stunned. I don't know what, if you know how much it meant personally, because she went through the ranks,

Speaker 3 all of the men, that's their dream afterwards is to own a team. That's the path.
Like that's what you do. But the women didn't even allow themselves to dare that.

Speaker 1 So to have that be part of her life i mean it's part of the reason we moved to la yep it has been like kind of heart shifting and life shifting for abby and and the other women well it made me feel a little bit like i didn't dream big enough in some ways because like here natalie portman shows up with this like whole idea bubble that completely opened my mind to the rest of my life so it's not just this it's like wait i think i've been thinking and and by the way i'm the dreamer of all dreamers maybe i've been thinking a little bit too small about my life.

Speaker 2 Maybe there are other places.

Speaker 1 So I just think that sometimes it's really important that we show up for each other.

Speaker 1 And what people don't understand is the way that Natalie wants to operate this majority-owned women's team is she wants to put women at the center.

Speaker 1 And you offered ownership stakes to this team, to the other women. that have built women's soccer in the United States.
Nobody does that. You asked some of me and my former teammates.

Speaker 1 There's 11 or 12 of us that are that are part owners of Angel City FC because you wanted to pay respect in some ways to these women who actually helped build women's soccer to where it is.

Speaker 4 There's just, you are, you are good stuff, Natalie.

Speaker 3 You're famous.

Speaker 2 Thank you for saying that. But I mean, it's really built on you and your teammates' shoulders.
I mean, you all

Speaker 2 started it. Your passion and dedication to it grew the sport, made it as exciting as it is today, started the fight for women's fair pay in the field.
It's all of your work and dedication.

Speaker 2 We're like latecomers who are like, oh, they all did all this really awesome stuff. Let's be part of this, you know.

Speaker 2 It's also, I think, taking the experts who have built it, like your leadership and your knowledge and expertise as our guiding light. And

Speaker 2 I think it's,

Speaker 2 you know, it's been a big learning experience yeah

Speaker 2 for for all of us in so many different ways rapid in some ways and slow in other ways but

Speaker 2 definitely you know we rely on on on you and on our current players the the players for the team also I think there's so much leadership and knowledge that we're gaining and that's the center of it all.

Speaker 1 It just also goes to show women in leadership positions and how they choose to start franchises or businesses. They don't forget how they got there.

Speaker 1 To me, that is an elemental part of starting the culture of something that can last

Speaker 1 for hopefully hundreds of years, right? So I'm just so grateful to you, big boss.

Speaker 4 It's competing together, what you just said.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 4 I love that competing together instead of competing with each other. Natalie, this podcast is called We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 4 What is hard for you in your life right now?

Speaker 2 Everything.

Speaker 2 Is that vague enough?

Speaker 2 Wow. I find everything so challenging.
But I try to pretend that it's easy. I mean, sort of, Abby, what you were saying about I didn't even think that dream was possible.

Speaker 2 I feel like maybe my heroic flaw is that Like, I don't realize how big stuff is that I take on sometimes or how unprepared or unknowledgeable I am, which I'm grateful for because I think I do try things that are too hard for me and that I'm not really capable of.

Speaker 2 And then I have to kind of like

Speaker 2 meet the challenge or, you know, fail and get over failing quickly.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I'm learning that it's something that's unusual to me that I'm like, oh, sure. I'm basically a ballerina.
And then to get there, I'm like, oh, shit, I don't know anything about this.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, oh, gotta gotta figure this out somehow, you know, gotta figure out how to fake it. Similarly, like, yeah, let's do a soccer team.

Speaker 2 And then I'm like, oh, I don't know anything about anything. I'm making mistakes on every front.
I guess that's part of it is

Speaker 2 like not

Speaker 2 knowing that it's gonna be okay if you fail. Unless you're like a heart surgeon, then not okay.
Yes. Not okay to fail.
And then also, yeah, maybe a little ignorance is bliss for taking on hard things.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I love that. So you just, you have the idea of just showing up and saying yes before you've decided you're completely qualified, which is

Speaker 3 a huge

Speaker 4 behaving like a man. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Dude moves. Dude moves.

Speaker 2 Dude moves.

Speaker 2 Obsessed. Okay.
You don't have to have qualifications. No.

Speaker 2 Basically, I'm going to read something.

Speaker 1 Those are big boss moves.

Speaker 2 Yes, that's right.

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Speaker 3 Okay, so we want to talk about some of the cages you fought and are fighting your way out of, which are common to so many of us. One of them is people pleasing.

Speaker 3 So you said that the messaging to you as a young woman, as it was for many of us, was to focus on making yourself attractive and pleasing other people

Speaker 3 as opposed to focusing on what you want. So how did you break out of that cage of people pleasing? Or how do you still? Because I assume it's a daily thing, right?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Okay.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 And it's actually been something something really amazing that Kara Nortman, who's one of my co-founders at Angel City, has influenced a lot because she introduced me to an executive coach because that's one of those roles that I took on that I was so unprepared for.

Speaker 2 And one of the big things that I work on with her is she actually talks kind of about like personality types, and my type is very, very much about caring a lot about pleasing people.

Speaker 2 And it was, first of all, interesting for me to understand that everyone operates in different ways, and that might not be like a universal

Speaker 2 motivating factor for everybody.

Speaker 2 I think a lot of it has to be like remembering

Speaker 2 and relearning how to recognize your own desires. Because when you're pleasing, it's very hard to distinguish between

Speaker 2 what other people want. Like you get really good at reading other people's minds.
Yes. And that's one thing, which the coach that I work with, her name is Diana,

Speaker 2 says,

Speaker 2 remember, that's also your superpower so that you don't just hate it about yourself. Like you're really good at knowing what other people want.
And that's an asset.

Speaker 2 And use it and speak up about it when you know that. And then also paying attention.
And she calls it a full body yes. She has great meditations about it.

Speaker 2 Her organization is called Conscious Leadership. and I highly recommend it.

Speaker 2 And they have some publicly available meditations about thinking about something that you have a whole body yes to and feeling it in your body and what that feels like.

Speaker 2 And then thinking about something that was a whole body no

Speaker 2 and feeling what that feels like in your body and kind of naming like where that is in your body and recognizing that.

Speaker 2 And then also something that's in the middle, you know, and understanding what that feels like in your body. And then going for things that are whole body yeses.

Speaker 2 It's a physical experience and practicing what's the physical experience of, yes, I completely want this and no, I completely do not want this and those, those in-between situations, which I think is kind of the biggest thing when you are

Speaker 2 very aware of other people's

Speaker 2 desires for you.

Speaker 4 Have you been able to use that outside of your executive role? Like have you been able to use that in your personal, the whole full body thing?

Speaker 2 I I think it's almost more in personal life than in executive life. Executive, I'm like, I don't know what anyone wants for me.
I don't know what I'm doing. Full body, I don't know.

Speaker 2 I'm like, full body, no idea. Full body is out of body.
Exactly. Out of body.
With personal, I have more experience.

Speaker 2 I have, you know, 40 years experience of what everyone wants for me and understanding what everyone wants me to do.

Speaker 3 I think it's so

Speaker 3 important, though, because I think when we try to think about what we want or what we don't want or what we think about something or we always go to our mind to try to figure it out.

Speaker 3 But what we have discovered again and again is that it's never there. We do that full body thing, but we call it what feels warm or what feels cold or what feels big or what feels like clinchy.

Speaker 3 These are very

Speaker 2 kind of physical terms because also that's objective experience. Yes.
Whereas thoughts and feelings are so subjective and

Speaker 2 confusing, but like physical experiences experiences feels good, does it feel good?

Speaker 2 Yeah. I have a friend who's a writer.
She calls it like, she wants to be more like her dog.

Speaker 2 That's where she's like, person's nice, I go towards person that nice, go back away. Yes.
It really is relying on your instincts. The body knows.

Speaker 3 That's right. The body doesn't let.
And it's not like a dog is like, oh, but I want that person to think I'm sweet.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 Or I don't want to hurt that person's feelings.

Speaker 2 Yes. Right.

Speaker 4 Also, dogs will bite. And then I think if we would bite bite a little bit more, people would treat us better.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 2 What would puzzle us?

Speaker 3 What was your last

Speaker 3 full-body yes?

Speaker 2 Last full-body yes. Hmm, good question.
I was just away from my kids a couple days working, and when I saw them, it was just so like all I wanted to do was hug them.

Speaker 2 And that was very full, like, oh my gosh, I there was just pure, pure desire.

Speaker 3 yeah

Speaker 4 ever since I heard what Aronofsky told you during Black Swan I've been saying it to myself over and over do you know what I'm referring to I'm wondering if it's the like do one for yourself yes

Speaker 2 yes can you tell that story because I've been saying it to myself and may tattoo it on my body oh I'm so happy it's a great direction I try and remind myself to when I'm working especially but um you know when you're shooting something you do so many many takes and you'll do the same thing over and over and the director probably similar to like coach in athletics like gives you feedback and then you try and alter based on the feedback to please them

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 and Darren

Speaker 2 would do that and then at the end when he felt he got it he was like now do one for yourself and that was always the best one and it was wild because he would always do it when he felt like he got what he wanted and then you just were completely free and it was and then he was saying, like, those are the tapes he ended up using.

Speaker 2 And it was really revolutionary for me to be able to,

Speaker 2 for the first time,

Speaker 2 really think about

Speaker 2 just for my own being.

Speaker 3 When you talk about desire and

Speaker 3 separating that from all the things in our head that we think we're supposed to want or want to do to please other people, what do you think about desire right now for you?

Speaker 3 What do you desire most in your life?

Speaker 2 Besides. Such an old lady answer.

Speaker 3 Besides sleep.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 That's where we all went.

Speaker 2 I really want to sleep.

Speaker 3 Fair enough.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I hate that that's my answer. I think I desire nature a lot too, right now.

Speaker 2 I feel like that's like a

Speaker 2 post-pandemic nature and community. I think I like really miss

Speaker 2 community

Speaker 2 from being so isolated and really miss

Speaker 2 nature from, or not miss it, but like realize how important it is, I think, when you're inside a lot.

Speaker 3 What is your community? Is that friendship? Are you talking about friendship? Are you talking about families that you hang out with? What does community look like for you?

Speaker 3 We're trying to figure that out for ourselves. So I'm actually curious about.

Speaker 2 No, I think it's the toughest. I think it's the toughest thing.
I think it's like a very American predicament because

Speaker 2 we are so like,

Speaker 2 oh, you move where your career takes you. It's very removed from the village model of you live where your parents lived and where your grandparents lived.

Speaker 2 And then everyone's in the same area and you have like a structure and a ritual of, you know, people eat dinner together this day of the week and people go to church this day of the week.

Speaker 2 And there's this community game. And there are places that are still like that, but I think a lot of us are, and especially in big cities, are really removed from that.

Speaker 2 And then it's really complicated to find community. And then pandemic obviously exacerbated that.
And then it does become around school or kids or kids' sports.

Speaker 2 Or like, you end up hanging out with the people. that you spend the most time with, which becomes

Speaker 2 a lot, definitely when you have kids, like around that, which is amazing, you meet a whole new group of people. It becomes like you have several communities and not one.

Speaker 2 And there's people from work and there's the people from your kids and there's the people from your family and there's that happen to be living in the same city as you that aren't necessarily like your immediate family.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's wild and it's definitely another. another puzzle.

Speaker 2 I don't know. What are your words of wisdom around building community?

Speaker 3 Well, I think it's a good idea in general.

Speaker 4 She's a full body yes to it.

Speaker 3 No, I haven't been, though, my whole life because I've been, I got sober and then my whole life was kids.

Speaker 2 Which was your community. Which was my.

Speaker 3 But now the kids are getting older, Natalie. So she's going, oh, shit.

Speaker 2 I'm like, oh, shit. What?

Speaker 1 I'm going to have to look at Abby forever.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 3 So.

Speaker 3 We have been practicing.

Speaker 3 We've been practicing actually making friends and being in community, which means you have to call people back and you have to hang out with them and remember things. And it's kind of beautiful.

Speaker 3 It's starting to make me feel very tethered, like a village.

Speaker 3 And so I don't know, I recommend it, but maybe not until the kids are older.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I just got into this community of my family. And one of the things that I'm kind of obsessed with is trying to be, I don't know, the best version of myself parent-wise.

Speaker 1 And I'm curious because I've been reading a little little bit about your theory on over practice and under practice with kids. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Speaker 2 Love it, by the way. Oh,

Speaker 2 so good. Oh, tell me more.

Speaker 3 So, let me, Natalie, here's your theory, okay? Yes, your theory is that, and I'm going to say it in my own words, so this might not be your theory.

Speaker 3 This is what I want your theory to be.

Speaker 2 Great.

Speaker 2 I'll make it my theory because I want to please you. Okay,

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 So the idea that our culture does, of course, teach some genders certain things, over-teaches them certain things, and over-teaches another gender certain things.

Speaker 3 So what you talked about was that with your little boy, you might overpractice empathy and connection and sensitivity, not because it's more important for boys to be that than girls, but because the culture has already handled the other side for them.

Speaker 3 Am I getting this right? So John?

Speaker 2 Yes. Okay.
yes.

Speaker 2 You're making it much more eloquent than I've ever said it. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's that makes sense.

Speaker 2 But, yes, I've talked about it in relation to my children's book that I wrote where I made more characters female, not more, like it's balanced in the book, but that I had noticed that so many of the children's book I was reading were largely male characters.

Speaker 2 And so, I felt that girls have overpracticed identifying with male characters, similar to what we're talking about with athletic heroes,

Speaker 2 that girls have the practice of identifying. And also some of this pleasing

Speaker 2 sensitivity that I talk about in myself, I think has to do with that over practice of

Speaker 2 getting into the mind of a male

Speaker 2 protagonist and being like, what do they want? And so in fiction, whether it's books or movies or TV shows, I feel like I'm so used to like getting into the mind of the male.

Speaker 2 And that I think that the underrepresentation of female characters in those fictional scenarios where we do empathize and relate to characters, and particularly for kids, that boys could use more practice at getting into the female mind.

Speaker 2 And that what a different world it would be if boys were walking around imagining what the females around them were desiring the same way that we are raised to be like, How do they want me to act?

Speaker 2 How do they want me to dress? How do they want me to look? What shape would they like my body to be? That, like, we're so hyper-aware.

Speaker 2 And hopefully, also, that girls by entering female minds, practicing, female minds, practicing, like puts them more into themselves as well and more into their own desire. I mean, I guess, again,

Speaker 2 this personal, personal challenge that I work through myself, I hope to change those patterns that I feel like I grew up with for my kids, which I'm sure you have your own that you focus on with yours.

Speaker 2 I love it.

Speaker 3 It is. It's a difference just when it's asking your little boy, how do you think they're feeling?

Speaker 3 And asking your little girl, how do you feel? It's just practicing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, my Wolfpack book, how oftentimes I'll be on stage and being asked about it and they'll say, this is a women's leadership book. And I'm like, it's actually just a leadership book.

Speaker 1 In fact, if you read it, the note to the reader invites men into the concepts that are written about it, though it's written from a woman's perspective. It also is just a leadership book.

Speaker 1 And we have to invite men and boys into the mindsets of the perspective and the lens through all genders, not just women, right? We're talking about non-binary people too. So I love that.

Speaker 3 I've had men come up to me after speeches again and again and say, I love this.

Speaker 3 Who is the male version of this?

Speaker 2 I'm like, wow. Like,

Speaker 3 I've had to sit and listen and read so many books by men, and I just find myself in it. Right.
I don't say, damn it, where's the woman version?

Speaker 4 So fascinating. This is why I love the practice term because they're coming by it honestly.
They've never practiced. It's that the way that we grow up having to practice the fact that he

Speaker 4 actually means everyone.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 4 It actually just means he, but we have had to practice so much reading as if that represents us, but they've never had to practice that way ever. And so I love that idea.

Speaker 4 I've never heard it put that way that visualizing a woman as a main character is not only liberating to a little girl to see herself as a main character, it's a boy practicing a world in which a woman is not just a supporting character.

Speaker 2 That's right. No, I think that's such a great way.
That's such a great way of putting it because it is, in all the languages that are gendered, you know, how you make plural is always male.

Speaker 2 And so it is true that male starts to represent everyone.

Speaker 2 If you have to go to a generic term in the previous version of they, like that we use in non-binary language

Speaker 2 now, that in other languages, that's kind of been the default setting that male was non-specific gender.

Speaker 2 And that's really really interesting, just like one of those things of how language affects the way you think.

Speaker 2 What would it be if the female could be universalized?

Speaker 3 Exactly.

Speaker 2 Like the female

Speaker 2 being. It is really exciting to think about.

Speaker 3 Well, we say fireman. What's the big deal? We can all find ourselves in fireman.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 3 If we can all find ourselves in fireman, then why don't we just for a century call them all fire women?

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 3 Because then certainly all the men can find themselves in fire women. It's It's really good.
And then everyone's like, well, sure as hell, we can't do that.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 3 It's so interesting to see how our own conditioning is like, oh, well, we should find ourselves in that.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Then shouldn't we?

Speaker 4 Well, not to get too far on a gender thing, but in the language piece, Natalie, they've done studies where certain words, like if you, the word bridge in certain languages are feminine and certain languages are masculine.

Speaker 4 In the countries where they're masculine, people report bridges as being strong and fortifying. In the languages where they are feminine, they are seen as precarious and beautiful.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 3 And so it, but it's a bridge. It's a bridge of both.

Speaker 4 It's just one's feminine and one's masculine.

Speaker 2 So it's just fascinating. It's amazing.
Yeah. It's always so magical, too, when you like see that words like that, like inanimate objects are gendered in other languages.

Speaker 2 And you're like, what led the table to being female in this country and male in another? It's like so, so wild. It's like the whole, it's whole own subject.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's a whole podcast, another podcast. Yeah.
We'll do that one next week. Yeah.
Yeah. That's right.
Yeah.

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Speaker 3 So sister and I were talking about this the other night in reference to you, because you said something about how when you were

Speaker 3 kind of led to become a leader through Time's Up or a million things, that you kind of had to give up likability privilege, just how we call it.

Speaker 3 Like sister always says, okay, as a woman, you can either be liked or you can lead.

Speaker 2 so pick one

Speaker 3 do you think that that's true do you think that as a woman

Speaker 3 leadership does mean giving away like ability

Speaker 2 or control great question

Speaker 2 it's a good question yeah and that's and that's a good distinction too you definitely can't control anything maybe ever um which is also part of the thing i'm trying to learn um but yeah i think it's true i think you certainly have to not care as much about likability.

Speaker 2 It is just inevitable that basically being specific about anything makes you not likable to somebody, you know?

Speaker 2 And when you care about pleasing people and making people like you, then you want to just be

Speaker 2 universal, which is watery.

Speaker 2 And so, yeah, so to take a stand on anything is absolutely going to make make some people go, nope, not you, not into you.

Speaker 2 And that is a big step to take. I mean, it's those far braver things humans have done in life, but it was definitely a hurdle to

Speaker 2 get over.

Speaker 1 I like Big Boss.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I did too. I liked Big Boss, and I cannot lie.

Speaker 2 I was waiting. Of course, the best 40 minutes, but we got there.

Speaker 3 And I just, I do want to point out that I feel like with men, there is more of, you're going to take a stand, be specific people aren't going to like you but i think with women it almost doesn't even matter what you're specific about because the thing that is unlikable is the leadership at all yeah is the having a strong opinion is the believing in yourself is the wanting is being ambitious or powerful or saying i have something that is needs to be said so it almost doesn't even matter what you're saying it's that you're saying it that bumps up on people's unlikeable oh there's just something about her

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 3 I just related so much to that. When you talk about Times Up, you gave two really awesome pieces of advice, which I loved so much.
One was gossip well.

Speaker 3 Can you talk to us about what it means to gossip well?

Speaker 2 I think that

Speaker 2 something I learned

Speaker 2 is, and I'm still learning too,

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 the kind of language that we've used about other women that we've participated in, that I've participated in, I will like take responsibility

Speaker 2 of either

Speaker 2 saying it myself or repeating what other people say and things about women that like

Speaker 2 and I mean it can be about men too. I mean gossip is is can be toxic about anyone, about all genders.

Speaker 2 But about women, there's certainly certain words that we use. And also, something I realized was that sometimes people were telling me gossip

Speaker 2 as a way of tarnishing someone's reputation after they had done something to them, which is a crazy revelation for me, too.

Speaker 2 It was like, oh, this director I worked with who I really liked and was very nice to me told me this bad thing about another actress. And I repeated that information.

Speaker 2 And then I realized he did something bad to that actress and is trying to like diminish her power so that he doesn't get in trouble by saying that she's difficult or crazy or whatever.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that was like 10 years after the fact.

Speaker 2 But I think that to be hyper-aware of those words of crazy, of difficult, of bitchy, of, you know, the awful words that people use about women, and then use the constructive parts of gossip.

Speaker 2 There are constructive parts. If it is sharing information, like that is a dangerous person, be careful.

Speaker 2 That is constructive, like women talking to each other. There are constructive forms of gossip.
This is a great person. You should go there.
That person's really funny.

Speaker 2 That person's really great to work with. That person, stay away.
Careful. There's constructive and there's destructive.
I'm against drama-inducing gossip, like workplace drama stuff.

Speaker 2 I'm always like, there's no room for that. But I don't write it off completely because I do think there's the village

Speaker 2 really helpful to survival aspect of gossip

Speaker 2 that should not be thrown out.

Speaker 1 Yes. I like that because, like, even in the locker rooms, sometimes we just all needed to vent, just to vent, to get the shit out, and then we can move on.

Speaker 1 And obviously, there's, there's many more aggressive and violent things that can happen on movie sets and in locker rooms and whatnot that I'm not talking about that specifically, but it's like sometimes it's really good to just get a good vent session out.

Speaker 2 Cause it also, that's like really community bonding bonding and building.

Speaker 2 And also, you could probably use a nicer term for it, but what movements haven't grown out of some sort of gossip of me being like, I'm having a bad experience. I'm also having a bad experience.

Speaker 2 I'm also having a bad experience. Wait, we're all having it? That means I'm validated that this is a larger thing.
It's not me.

Speaker 2 We're all experiencing this and we can do something together about it. Like there's a form of gossip that's at the beginning of it.

Speaker 2 Maybe we can identify it more as like sharing and maybe call gossip like the nasty stuff.

Speaker 2 But I think it's like important to differentiate those different forms of sharing negative experience that like Maybe it's important to share negative experience that's happened to you directly versus someone you don't know that you've heard about.

Speaker 2 We have to just kind of be aware and question ourselves when we're in situations where gossip arises. Like,

Speaker 2 is this constructive or destructive? This is something I personally experienced.

Speaker 3 Well, even gossip is a gendered word.

Speaker 4 They would never say guys gossip.

Speaker 3 When men are telling each other things, it's sharing information. And when women are telling each other things, it's gossip.
Even that word is gendered.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 4 It's also brave to share what you went through because when the stamp on women who have bad experiences with people in power is that they're crazy or difficult then you saying i've had a bad experience with this person in power is a way of saying

Speaker 4 i reject the notion that i am crazy and difficult i'm naming this as what it is and then other people can come out and be like maybe i'm not crazy and difficult maybe my bad experience was because of the person who gave me the bad experience and not because of me absolutely and also i think that like the journalists who have dealt with this found that people were most willing to talk when they realized that they were protecting other people by talking and that you understand

Speaker 2 that you being silent about your experience is actually endangering people and like somehow complicit in a scenario so again i think that we have to be really careful about discouraging gossip completely yes because there is

Speaker 2 a form of it that can be extremely necessary and it could be very silencing. And like you said, there is a gendered.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to remember where I read this, but it was saying that gossip was like the most free part of a woman's life because this is where she can speak the truth.

Speaker 3 I read that same article, Natalie.

Speaker 2 I read that same article. What is it?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think it's probably the New York Times or something. I read

Speaker 2 because I like remember underlying it. I'm like, where was this?

Speaker 3 But Natalie does have a specific sentence we can say, which actually makes me, I've used twice now and gives me goosebumps and makes me feel feelings.

Speaker 3 So she said, Stop the rhetoric that a woman is crazy or difficult. If a man says to you that a woman is crazy or difficult, ask him, What bad thing did you do to her?

Speaker 3 I don't know why that makes me so

Speaker 3 emotional. What bad thing did you do to her?

Speaker 3 Just the alignment right away.

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Speaker 4 So, you are reprising Jane Foster in Thor, Love, and Thunder, which I'm hoping is my epitaph.

Speaker 4 You came back to the role in part because you said you were excited to play a character who, quote, is as weak as she is strong.

Speaker 4 I love that so much. Can you tell us what it means

Speaker 4 to be as weak as you are strong? I feel like we should all be striving for that.

Speaker 2 I was so excited, of course, to come back and work with Chris and Tessa again, and then to work with Tyka, who's the director for the first time.

Speaker 2 He's extraordinary and just like knows how to make everything silly and profound at the same time, which is the best.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I feel like there's this kind of misperception that a feminist character has to be kick-ass and like, like, she's just strong and can win in the fight.

Speaker 2 But I don't relate to that unless she can also like fall apart.

Speaker 2 that's just not my experience like I see a

Speaker 2 woman who's just like can just get everything done and just cool and collected and capable at all times is like really awesome and not me at all so I am not relatable um

Speaker 2 so yeah it was really fun to get to explore

Speaker 2 a human who gets thrown into a superhero role. It's like, oh, wait a minute.

Speaker 2 I guess I'm a ballerina.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Exactly.
It was really fun to do. And especially with like the humor that Tyga and Chris and Tessa bring to it is joyful.

Speaker 1 We're going to switch gears a little bit right now and ask you some random questions.

Speaker 1 I want to know, Natalie Portman, what is the best advice you've ever received that you still rely upon?

Speaker 2 So I have a cousin, my cousin Daniela, who is like the closest person to me

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 is so wise.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 once when I was like in the worst place in my life, she said to me, I don't worry about you. And it was like the best thing ever.

Speaker 2 It was, it made me feel so good. She's like, you're going to be fine.
I'm not worried. And it was like so calming for me.

Speaker 2 And I've used it back to her now because when someone knows you really well, it's almost the best thing

Speaker 2 you can say.

Speaker 2 It's like, it's actually really stressful when someone's like,

Speaker 2 I'm here for you. Are you going to do that? Not like you're like, what are we going to do?

Speaker 2 Make it.

Speaker 2 But I think you're concerned that this is going to be bad. You know, when someone's like, I know you and I'm not worried.
I was like,

Speaker 2 oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 You're going to be fine is what we all kind of say. That's the standard.

Speaker 1 Like, I'm not worried about you is a, there's something different about that that really like hit me in a way that that makes me it's like a more certain you're gonna be fine yes and it's like i know you well enough not to be worried

Speaker 3 i'm yeah i know your character i know who you are i'm reflecting back to you that you are the kind of person who's gonna be okay yes it's like that thing you always say glenn i see your thing and that's big but i see you and you're bigger yeah like

Speaker 2 it's gonna be all right yeah i'm gonna use that with my kids except i'll be like i'm not worried about you. Everything's fine.
Everything's fine.

Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. Okay.
I'm worried about everything. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Okay. So when things get wild and you get stressed out or you get sad or you get,

Speaker 3 I have a list that I have my healthy coping strategies and my unhealthy coping strategies actually on.

Speaker 4 Guess which list is longer?

Speaker 2 Yeah, guess what this is longer.

Speaker 3 So I know like my unhealthy ones are booze and binging and you know the things that took me down and made me abandon myself and made everything shit.

Speaker 3 And then, I have healthier coping strategies, which are usually very simple things that I can do around my house.

Speaker 3 So, do you know off the bat what's an unhealthy coping strategy for you and what's a healthy coping strategy for you?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 probably unhealthy is work, like working too much.

Speaker 2 Um,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 like

Speaker 2 if we're doing doing one,

Speaker 2 healthy. Oh my God, I'm such a dork.
I watch a lot of like

Speaker 2 food television when I'm stressed out and it really calms me down. So like my husband will come home and he'll be like, it's been a bad day because of like watching like Iron Chef.

Speaker 2 And he's like, what happened, you know?

Speaker 2 It like calms my like, like everything calms down and I stop spiraling about whatever I'm spiraling about. I feel really relaxed.
It's really, really dorky. And I love it though.

Speaker 1 It's like a show about nourishing yourself, right? Like you're watching people making things that nourish people.

Speaker 2 And it also

Speaker 3 is so scary.

Speaker 2 I mean, except Iron Cook.

Speaker 3 But most of the time, the worst thing that's going to happen is this soup is going to get ruined.

Speaker 2 Yes. Right? And they like ramp it up so it feels stressful with like music and effects.
But really, it's like, not good. Everyone's going eat something good at the end of the day.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's like it's all good. Yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker 4 I mean, if it makes you feel better, Natalie, that would have been on my healthy list.

Speaker 2 No, that is her healthy list. That is her healthy.
That is her healthy healthy. I thought you were saying that was your unhealthy.
No, that was my healthy.

Speaker 2 The unhealthy is like the workaholism.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Oh, good.

Speaker 2 I mean, I love working when it's like

Speaker 2 because I'm just really stoked about being there, but if it's because I'm like,

Speaker 2 I need to accomplish this, this, and that, or whatever, then I think it's like an unhealthy, okay.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it makes me feel better.

Speaker 3 What do you do for fun besides INCHEF?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's a lot of INCF and Top Chef and Master Chef and Master Chef Jr.

Speaker 2 I'm like, my husband's like, you're watching Master Chef Jr. by yourself.

Speaker 2 Code rays. It's a lot of children competing in cooking.

Speaker 2 But I love that they're so talented. It's so moving.
I cried.

Speaker 2 I love being outside. I love doing anything outside.
So I go hiking with friends. Two of my best friends from high school,

Speaker 2 we just, we went on like a big hiking trip in Bryce and Zion. And that was like amazing, dreamy, like best time of my life.

Speaker 1 The hoodoos. Did you see the hoodoos?

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh, it's so beautiful.

Speaker 2 It's so beautiful. That's probably like my favorite favorite thing to do is just like be with friends in that kind of environment

Speaker 2 or my kids. That's the best.
So yeah, that's my biggest.

Speaker 4 Can we just have a moment of appreciation for the fact that you just said you're two best friends from high school? So you have managed the course of your wildly

Speaker 3 prolific

Speaker 4 life to keep best friends from high school.

Speaker 2 That's incredible. I think so.

Speaker 2 I mean, I get what i think is more remarkable is that like i met such awesome people that long ago and in that space i think it's so rare that you can meet anyone at that age that you're still like super interested in whatever 30 years later as a gift but yeah but also i feel like it's kind of natural to

Speaker 2 i don't know when you have a lot of people wanting to be around you for reasons that are like impure to like hold on tight as you can to the people who you've known the longest to be like,

Speaker 2 stick by me and keep me honest, you know, tell me, tell me what's up.

Speaker 3 Yeah, makes sense. Well, I just, I don't know.
Thank you for just always being so present and always bringing your full self to every interaction you're in.

Speaker 3 Like whether it's like a phone call about Ancient City or an hour-long podcast or a new movie, the way you are with your friends and your babies, we adore you. Thank you for you.

Speaker 2 Feeling is mutual. Thank you so much.
It was so, so, so great to talk to you. And I hope you get to hang soon.

Speaker 4 And Thor is out tomorrow.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 4 see it. It's so exciting.

Speaker 3 And you go watch Master Chef with your babies. And

Speaker 3 we will talk soon. And the rest of you.

Speaker 2 Watch it. It's so relaxing.
Okay. We will.

Speaker 1 We're going to watch it. Thanks for being here, big boss.

Speaker 2 We love you. We love you, big boss.

Speaker 2 You, big bosses. Thank you.
And we love you, Pod Squad.

Speaker 3 We'll see you next time. Bye.

Speaker 3 We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it.
It's fine.