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Natalie is born on June 9, 1981, in the holy city of Jerusalem. Her parents are an art student from Cincinnati and a medical student from Israel. They move to the US when Natalie is three and live in Maryland and Connecticut before settling down on Long Island, where her father works as an infertility specialist at a university hospital. · More baby pictures |
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At age 11 Natalie is "discovered" in a pizza parlor by a Revlon employee who wants her to model for a line of children's fragrances (?!). After telling the company she'd rather act she gets an agent and starts going on auditions in New York City. She treats it as a lark, though, rather than a serious career. Ironically, her first job is in an Off-Broadway musical called Ruthless, about child actors who'll do anything to land a part. |
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French director Luc Besson picks Natalie for one of the leads in his movie Léon, as a grungy orphan girl who gloms onto a simpleminded hitman. Natalie is ecstatic to get the part, but her parents become alarmed after reading the movie's script and Besson has to negotiate with them before they'll let her do it. The movie is shot between June and October 1993 on location in New York City and at the Epinay studios outside Paris. |
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After a disastrous test screening Besson is forced to cut twenty minutes out of Léon before it's released. When it opens in France the film is a major smash and some theaters in Paris screen it around the clock. In the US it's retitled The Professional and does fairly well when it opens in November 1994, making $30 million. Natalie gets excellent reviews from the critics. Over the years the film builds a serious cult following on video, despite the fact that Besson's "director's cut", called the Version Intégrale, is never released in the US. · 1994: November 24 Appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman · 1994: December 14 Appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien · 1995: February Interview magazine · 1995: July Premiere magazine · 1995: July Venice magazine |
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After Léon, Natalie shoots an obscure short film called Developing and also a small and ridiculous part in Michael Mann's otherwise excellent Heat. In 1995 she gives her best performance to date, as a girl named Marty in Ted Demme's Beautiful Girls. There are those who believe it's one of the sweetest depictions of a young girl ever put on film. Even before the movie is released a buzz develops in Hollywood about her performance--the fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi selects her to appear in a national ad campaign, and director Adrian Lyne offers her the title role in Lolita, though she turns it down. · 1995: November Seventeen magazine · 1996: January Detour magazine · 1996: January Entertainment Weekly · 1996: January Who Weekly magazine |
