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Just rewatched Léon and it's an amazing experience to see Natalie Portman put in such a great performance at 12 years old.
#NataliePortman #Léon
in reply to Gidi Kroon

It's weird but a lot of great actresses had really great films around that age already:


  • As mentioned Natalie Portman was 12 during filming Léon
  • Jodie Foster was 12 in Taxi Driver and got an Oscar nomination; the lesser known but maybe even better performance in The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane was in the same year
  • Chloë Grace Moretz was also 12 in Let Me In where she did a very complicated character very touchingly
  • Ivana Baquero carried Pan's Labyrinth at 11
  • Dafne Keen was 11 when she drove everybody in Logan to up their game
  • Alexa Nisenson was 11 when she put in a multilayered performance in Fear The Walking Dead. That's a tv series, but her performance is on a par with the above



Obviously they've done (or will do) great stuff later too and some like Chloë and Jodie did even earlier, but these are all goosebump performances.

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in reply to Gidi Kroon

Omg how can I forget Dakota Fanning. Maybe because it's actually too obvious. By that age she already had a whole film catalogue with very worthy performances and a SAG award nomination (at 8). As standout example I choose Uptown Girls, where she's the equal to top talent Brittany Murphy and she played a kid who acted like she's a grown up. She was 9. They had probably the best chemistry ever in film. I love that film.