ANT KATZ AND SUZANNE BELLING

The Jerusalem-born actress took her well-deserved break, sampling family life for a while.

After winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2011 for her role in “Black Swan”, Natalie settled for a while into married life and while in Paris acted in two “Thor” movies and a romantic comedy with Ashton Kutcher.

But Natalie is back with a vengeance. In recent weeks it has been announced that she stars in two films to be released this year, both directed by Terrence Malick, one of the most critically acclaimed filmmakers of all time. She will also star as two of the 20th century’s most famous women – Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis – in two separate films to be made this year.

And, as if that wasn’t enough, Natalie will also act in a promising Western “Jane Got a Gun”, which she co-produced, alongside Ewan McGregor and Joel Edgerton.

The New York Times wrote recently that her face “is everywhere” at the Cannes Film Festival, where she premiered her directorial debut – “A Tale of Love and Darkness”, an adaptation of the famed Israeli author Amos Oz’s memoir.

The film, in which Portman also stars and for which she wrote the screenplay, garnered a standing ovation at its Cannes premiere. (Her dress received mostly positive reviews as well.)

How is that for a prodigious comeback? It’s like she is making up for lost time.

In “A Tale of Love and Darkness” wrote Andrew Pulver in the Guardian: “Portman herself plays [Oz’s mother]: it’s a controlled, queenly performance, her intense glamour remaining entirely intact.”

“A Tale of Love and Darkness” has been translated into many languages and brilliant a writer as Oz may be, this is by far his most unforgettable book. The characters of his family are as alive as if they were in your living room portraying the life of Israel before statehood and the period thereafter.

Natalie recently opened up to the Hollywood Reporter about such Jewish topics as Israel, being Jewish in Paris and being Alan Dershowitz’s research assistant as an undergraduate student at Harvard, where she majored in psychology.

She is not a fan of Benjamin Netanyahu and said she was “very upset” after he was re-elected as prime minister of Israel. “I find his racist comments horrific,” Portman said.

The actress was born Natalie Hershlag and is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an American-born artist from Cincinnati, Ohio, who also acts as her agent. After her family moved to New York, Natalie graduated with honours and attended Harvard University.

She was discovered by an agent in a pizza parlour at the tender age of 11. She was encouraged to take up modelling but chose and acting career instead.