Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Natalie Portman To Play Twin Sister Advice Columnists — And She’ll Direct The Movie, Too

Crown Princess of the World and Jew of Extraordinary Fame Natalie Portman will play the twin sisters and advice columnists who went by the names “Dear Abby” and “Ann Landers” in a movie that she will direct herself.

Good grief.

Setting aside our bitterness that Portman will likely achieve this daunting feat while remaining ludicrously thin and French-looking, this is thrilling news. Real-life twins Esther and Pauline Friedman, born 1918, became American institutions after holding dueling advice columns for decades under the names “Ann Landers” (Esther) and “Dear Abby” (Pauline). Portman mildly resembles the twins in their early years, and her decision to cast herself in Jewish roles is, while not uncharacteristic of her, exciting. As we see a trend of non-Jewish actors playing specifically Jewish characters — see: Oscar Isaac as a Mossad spy, etcetera — it’s nice to see Portman elect to tell Jewish stories.

Plus, this could be her version of “Parent Trap.”

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.