Natalie Portman, ridiculed in Rachel Cusk's latest book?

BarcelonaAlthough in The life of M, the new book by Rachel Cusk, Natalie Portman is not mentioned in any passage, many English and American media outlets have made evident, coinciding with the publication of the novel, the numerous commonalities between the protagonist and the actress. According to the British newspaper The Telegraph, Cusk explains "the author's literary murder of her character". The New York TimesAfter offering a radical dissection of the art world in Parade (2024; in Catalan by Les Hores), Cusk now tackles the day-to-day life of a film star through the main character. Actress M, who has befriended a writer in the European city where they both live, agrees to have the latter write her autobiography. The character shares with Portman that she made a very successful debut thanks to a film shot when she was still a child and that initially included sex scenes with the main male character, although they ended up being eliminated thanks to her mother's pressure. The story coincides with what happened with Léon: The Professional, by Luc Besson (1994), which Portman filmed when she was only 12 years old. The Life of M also explains that the protagonist actress is the well-known face of a prestigious brand, as is the case with Portman with Dior, and that she has had great impact playing a tortured ballerina: Portman won an Oscar for the lead role in Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010). Like Cusk and Portman, M lives in a European city, which, although not specified, could be Paris. The friendship between the author and the actress has been known since 2022 when Portman invited Cusk to her Instagram literary club, where they talked about the novel The Other House (2021; in Catalan by Les Hores).

According to a source close to the actress cited by the newspaper The Telegraph who has already read The Life of M, the actress's personality in the book "is not at all like" Portman's and it is, rather, "an alter ego of the writer". He also states that Cusk's team "is fueling the rumors" about the links with Portman "with the aim of boosting the novel's sales". The life of M is in the process of being translated into Catalan, and its publication by the publisher Les Hores is scheduled for next year.