But the director, now following up his acclaimed 2008 film “The Wrestler,” said the process of bringing “Black Swan” to the screen was far more difficult than choosing his lead.
“I’ve been a fan of Natalie’s since I saw her in ‘The Professional,’ ” Aronofsky said during a news conference at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. “Luc Besson is one of my favorite directors, and it turns out that her manager is an old friend of mine from college, and so I had a little inside line to meet her. We met in Times Square at the old Howard Johnson’s, which is now an American Apparel, which shows you where America is going.
“We had a really bad cup of coffee,” he said. “We talked a bit about it, and I started to develop it, but it was a really tough film because getting into the ballet world proved to be really challenging.”
Aronofsky said he spent years trying to effectively research the life of dancers, but most ballet companies he approached had no interest in the director shadowing their performers. And so the film was shelved while Aronofsky turned his attention to other films, including an adaptation of Frank Miller’s “Batman: Year One” (Christopher Nolan eventually took over the project, which became “Batman Begins”) and then proceeded to make “The Fountain” and “The Wrestler.”
All the while, Portman was still interested, but time was passing.
“Over the years, Natalie would say, ‘I’m getting too old to play a dancer — you better hurry up.’ I was like, ‘Natalie, you look great. You’ll be fine,’ ” Aronofsky said. “And then about a year out before the film — or maybe a little bit earlier — I finally got a screenplay together. That’s how it started.”
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