Natalie Portman was too short to be believable as a prima ballerina

I know nothing about ballet so I assume you are correct but I never thought about her height and in no way did it make her performance less believable for me. I'm assuming the vast majority of people who saw the film are like me. Personally I found her physique very believable for a ballet dancer and was impressed by her performance.

I think the height thing is a forgivable consequence of real ballet dancers not being leading actresses in hollywood. You can pretty much expect inaccuracies in anything portrayed. Medical movies/shows for example are very often inaccurate. For example: asystole (flatline EKG) is always shocked with paddles when in reality this is an unshockable rhythm.

Even in black swan she frequently hallucinates which we assume is her increasing psychosis but in reality people usually have auditory hallucinations with psychotic disease. Visual hallucinations are usually due to drugs. Visual hallucinations are a lot more interesting for a movie though so I'm totally on board with the inaccuracy.

Well, actually, there are some very famous ballet dancers who are quite small, and here is a nice article about size and bodytype and ballet:

http://www.shortsupport.org/News/0182.html

Anna Pavlova, one of the most iconic names in the history of ballet, was only five feet tall.

It all depends on the company and the choreography and your own abilities with your own body.

I did ballet my whole life and was very certain what you wrote was in correct because once you have your point shoes on you STILL have to be shorter than the male you are dancing with. I looked up a few things to avoid people claiming its just my opinion.


*** height is going to be the biggest factor in determining your ideal weight. Most ballerinas are between about 5 foot 3 inches and 5 foot 8 inches tall. With this height range, weight is ideally anywhere between about 85 and 130 lbs., and depends heavily on muscle and bone mass.

***A classic ballerina body will ideally have very specific proportions -- long, slender arms and legs with a small head, long neck and a short torso. This body shape is considered optimal for creating lovely lines and expressive movements on stag


***Ballerinas are expected to have a rather masculine but elegant shape with broad shoulders, small hips, small breasts and buttocks. The idea is to have the body create straight lines and smooth curves while dancing. Women have more fat tissue than men because of breasts and fatty tissue around the hips and buttocks, but since ballerinas are expected to have a less feminine shape, their weight may be slightly less than that for the average woman.

5'8 is on the taller side for a ballerina, in fact plenty of companies would find it too tall. Like anything else, when you step outside of what is desirable you better be THAT much better.

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She's not 5 foot 3, she's shorter. It's very common for actors to lie about their height

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