Natalie Portman is reportedly unhappy with Rachel Cusk’s new novel, Life of M, which is speculated to be inspired by the actor’s life and career.
Out August 25, the acclaimed author’s new novel is about an unnamed writer who takes an interest in the life of movie star M as the subject of her next book.
In early reviews of the novel, several outlets have pointed to certain aspects of M’s life that bear an uncanny resemblance to that of 45-year-old Portman, including that she lives in Paris, has been in the spotlight since childhood, and starred in a film about ballet, which has been widely interpreted as a nod to Portman’s Oscar-winning role in the 2010 psychological thriller Black Swan.
While Cusk has not yet publicly addressed claims that the character M appears to be loosely based on the Star Wars actor, a source close to Portman accused Cusk’s team of “certainly leaning in” to the rumors, per The Telegraph.
Another source, speaking to Page Six, alleged that Portman finds the similarities “annoying.” A separate publishing source, who reportedly knows both Cusk and Portman, told the outlet, “Of course Rachel is writing about Natalie! This is how she goes about her writing. Rachel steals from people’s lives and mines acquaintances.”
The Independent has contacted Portman and Cusk’s representatives for comment.
“Natalie is in an amazing place in her life,” a source said to Page Six. “She has an incredible partner and very close girlfriends; Rachel Cusk is not one of them, contrary to what she might like you to believe.”
The two may not be close friends, but they are at the very least acquaintances. The V for Vendetta actor previously hailed the Canadian-British author as “one of my favorite writers” during a joint conversation on her NatsBookClub Instagram account in 2021. Portman also selected Cusk’s novel Parade as her July 2024 book club pick.
Life of M has been described in reviews as “bizarre” and “dramatic,” with Slate’s Laura Miller declaring it “a narrative hall of mirrors that only a fool would confuse with a thinly veiled roman à clef about a celebrity.”
Similarly to M, Portman — who rose to fame as a child actor in the 1994 crime thriller Léon — has previously spoken out about being sexualized as a young girl on screen.
“I felt very scared by it,” she admitted to Jenna Ortega in a 2025 interview for Interview magazine. “Obviously sexuality is a huge part of being a kid, but I wanted it to be inside of me, not directed towards me. And I felt like my way of protecting myself was to be like, ‘I’m so serious. I’m so studious. I’m smart,’ and that’s not the kind of girl you attack.”
Portman continued: “But I think that’s the disconnect between me being stupid and silly in real life, and people thinking that I’m some really serious bookish person. I’m not a particularly private person in real life — I’ll tell you anything — but in public, it was so clear early on that if you tell people how private you are, your privacy gets respected a lot more.”
