Portman's bald truth: She'snopixie

NEW YORK -- Natalie Portman is having a big hair day. The wavy tresses she shaved to play strong-willed Evey in the political action drama V for Vendetta are growing out in cute, sprightly curls that frame her oval face. Portman calls her low-maintenance new 'do "pretty fun."

"I have someone who does it up for me on these occasions," she says with a giggle.

Portman had her locks shaved on screen in a single take. She tried not to lose her head along with her hair. "It was a one-shot deal, and that was the most stressful thing about the experience," she says, smiling.

Vendetta director James McTeigue recalls the pivotal shearing as just another day at work for the unflappable Portman, 24.

"The first time I saw her about the role, I had her put her hair behind her head because I wanted to see what she looked like bald. That was the only conversation we had about it," he says. "She knew the day was coming. I put three cameras on her, made sure the clippers weren't stuck, and then we shaved her head. She loved it and kept rubbing her head."

That businesslike attitude is on display over an evening chat at the Mandarin Oriental hotel overlooking Central Park. Portman is a pixie in a short-sleeved, dark blue frilly blouse, skintight jeans and silver ballerina flats, her eyes heavily made up for a day of press. But V for Vendetta, which opens Friday, is the first glimpse of a flintier, feistier Portman. The film is based on the graphic novel of the same name, co-written by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, published 15 years ago.

The movie, which rests largely on Portman's diminutive shoulders, is her first starring role in a potential blockbuster. She's the biggest name in the film and has been working overtime to promote it, particularly because its producers, the Matrix trilogy's Wachowski brothers, do not speak to the press. But Portman, who made her movie debut at 13 in The Professional, is more than up to the challenge. She has a psychology degree from Harvard and a roster of prestigious films under her narrow belt.

Anthony Minghella, who directed Portman in 2003's Cold Mountain, praises her curiosity and calls the actress "disarmingly intelligent. She reminds me a little of Jodie Foster, because I can see her, as time goes on, wanting to spread her wings beyond acting. Her big brain wants to be fed."

She recently completed Milos Forman's historic drama Goya's Ghosts and earned an Oscar nomination for playing a temptress in Mike Nichols' 2004 relationship chiller Closer. And now, as Evey, Portman battles a regime that doesn't value human rights and freedom of expression. Evey goes from timid to tenacious with the help of the mysterious, masked V (Hugo Weaving), who opposes the government and happens to have a major chip on his shoulder.

Weaving replaced James Purefoy three weeks into the shoot, but Portman handled the switch with aplomb, even though she shares most of her scenes with the faceless fighter. The two new co-stars broke the ice over "a very nice Thai meal in Berlin," Weaving says.

He describes his co-star as "extremely smart and sweet and very small" and "very relaxed."

Portman says she opted to take the role of Evey because she was "excited by the prospect of making a big, entertaining movie that also had substance," she says.

Vendetta, set in London, was filmed in Berlin last spring at historic Babelsberg Studios. V's home, the palatial underground Shadow Gallery, was shot on the same soundstage where Fritz Lang filmed his thriller Metropolis in 1927. For the Israeli-born Portman, spending nearly three months in Germany was eye-opening.

"As a Jew growing up, I'd never been to Germany before," she says. "I fell in love with Berlin. The movie is about a totalitarian regime, and seeing a city that's been through a series of totalitarian regimes sort of created a depth in our environment. And it's also a great city. It's like New York once was, full of artists and young people before it became prohibitively expensive."

To speak like a Londoner, Portman spent a month working with a dialect coach. Portman acknowledges that she got carried away. "I stayed in the accent all the time. They told me that's the best way to get the tune and rhythm," she says. "But then my mom said, 'Really, Natalie, enough already. This is crazy.' I'd call her on the phone and be like, 'Hellooo, Mum.'"

And that's about as personal as Portman gets. She's polite, chirpy even, yet from her darting glances and crisp answers, you get the feeling she doesn't relish talking about herself. That's not to say she can't let loose. After admiring a Wonder Woman T-shirt, she laughs at how illogical it is that the superhero's plane has no engine. And she breaks into full-body laughs when recounting one tabloid story that had her dating David Schwimmer, whom she had "never even met!"

But don't expect Portman to air her dirty laundry in public. The less you know about the enigmatic actress, the happier she is.

"I'm a really open person," she insists. "Everyone I'm close to knows everything about me. But I have friends to tell my problems to, and I have no desire to tell them to strangers. Public confessional is not something I'm tempted to do."

Portman isn't chased by paparazzi. She doesn't get into drunken brawls outside bars. And while you won't generally find her dancing up a storm with starlet tabloid princesses at various velvet-rope destinations, Portman does like to have a good time. She even spoofed her good-girl image in a gangsta rap she performed while hosting Saturday Night Live on March 4. The concept, she said, came to her when she and the writers "were throwing ideas around. What would be the most surprising thing coming from little conservative me? It seemed pretty funny."

In fact, Portman says she's anything but boring.

"People are always like, 'You don't party! Do you have any fun in your life?' And I'm like, 'I do party.' But I party with my friends. I'm not hanging out with tabloid targets. I hang out in my friends' apartments, and we go to non-Hollywoody clubs."

Besides, "I'm 24! I have fun. I'm not, like, doing drugs or being nuts. I like laughing more than anything."

She also loves to get as much shut-eye as possible and admits to picking her cuticles, a habit she can't kick: "I'm prone to it."

The actress gets most animated when discussing her favorite college courses (American literature, poetry and two classes taught by law professor Alan Dershowitz) and some books she has read, including Luis Buouel's autobiography and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera.

She gasps excitedly when told about an upcoming biographical book of doomed British queen Anne Boleyn. And she'll happily discuss dreams and what they might mean (not much, according to one of her Harvard classes).

The recent Vogue cover girl is dismissive of style-related chitchat because "it's more interesting to talk about real stuff rather than frivolous fashion stuff."

Still, Portman wears Lanvin, Chanel and young designers like Zac Posen, whom she met four years ago through a mutual friend at Harvard when Posen was making clothes in his parents' apartment. She has been donning his dresses ever since.

Posen says Portman is "the kind of woman that doesn't define herself by image or fashion. She's a big activist for animals, doesn't wear fur or leather and tries not to wear leather shoes. She's not caught up in the industry (politics) at all. She has her little house and her little dog."

Portman's personality, Minghella says, is "infectious and gregarious. You feel like she's got great parents who have nurtured her and have set a high bar for her."

The actress has two homes, one near her parents on Long Island and one in Manhattan. She drives an eco-friendly Toyota Prius and says navigating Manhattan's traffic is "fun." And she has an incognito security guy in tow to keep the pesky Star Wars fans at bay.

The biggest perk of being Queen Amidala?

"You get so much access. I've gotten to travel to Tunisia and Japan and Australia and Romania. I've gotten to talk to Bill Clinton and Ehud Olmert. For a 24-year-old, that's so lucky and rare," she says.

Her voice swells with passion as she talks about the "feminization of poverty" and how reading about Jordan's Queen Rania got her involved in the Foundation for International Community Assistance, a non-profit that helps the poor with banking services and offers mothers help in caring for their children.

Says Portman: "I was in Uganda with the program, and I saw a woman who'd been in the program for 10 years. She started out on less than $1 a day and had 10 kids, and her husband was beating her. Now she runs a restaurant, and one of her daughters is in university. You can turn it around."

Sounds just like something Evey would say.

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