Black Swan blackout!
Sarah Lane, the American Ballet Theater dancer who acted as Natalie Portman's dance double in the hit film, has a gripe with the Oscar-winning star and the film's execs.
Lane alleges she was told by executives at Fox Searchlight to stop speaking publicly about her work in the movie so that Portman could take the credit for the amazing dance moves herself.
"They were trying to create this facade that she had become a ballerina in a year-and-a-half," she told Dance Magazine in December. "So I knew they didn't want to publicize anything about me."
In interviews, Portman talked frequently about how grueling it was to master ballet techniques for the intense psychological drama. Yet when she won her Academy Award for the acclaimed performance, the actress failed to acknowledge Lane during her acceptance speech. Lane was also apparently deleted from a DVD extra showing Black Swan's special effects.
Rising up in Portman's defense? Benjamin Millepied, Black Swan's choreographer and now Portman's fiance (and father to the pregnant star's unborn child). Lane "just did the footwork and the fouettes and one diagonal in the studio," Millepied, 33, recently told the L.A. Times. "Honestly, 85% of that movie is Natalie."
