AP Photo/Jennifer GraylockDon't expect to see Natalie Portman hawking lip gloss anytime soon.
Thursday, the actress, along with business partner Christine Aylward, launched a behind-the-scenes entertainment web portal called MakingOf, and spoke about the project at the Apple Store in New York City, as an element of the Tribeca Film Festival. During her address to fans, she all but promised a beauty campaign was not in her future (perhaps she's still a bit burned by the failure of her shoe line).
"I don't have a problem with making money, but I don't believe in doing something you don't believe in to make money, like a makeup campaign or something like that—the opportunities that young actors have all the time," she says. "[MakingOf] is an exciting model to do something you really believe in and create something positive out of that…It's possible to do something positive in the world that’s still entrepreneurial."
That positive thing is a website aimed at all brands of film junkies and filled with interviews with filmmakers showing all angles of the industry—composers, costume designers, editors and more.
"The goal is really to be a comprehensive, centralized place for people who want to learn about film if it's specific aspects like how they got that cool explosion in the Bond movie or the serious film student wondering what lens they used when they shot that midnight scene or whatever," she explains to E! News. "We want to have that range and also cover departments that aren't typically covered in entertainment news."
The idea, she says, came to her "off-the-cuff" during a dinner with Aylward, whom she met on a film set in Madrid (presumably Goya's Ghosts), and other friends. Months later, Aylward came back to it and they agreed to "really make this happen."
On the site already, Jason Bateman offers advice on auditions, Billy Bob Thornton shares his insecurities, West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin explains how he picks a project, Ron Howard recalls his start and, of course, Portman offers her experience being a first-time director (she recently shot two shorts). However, the former Star Wars queen promises the site won't be simply an ego booster for her.
"I'm not intending for it to be about me," she says. "Obviously, I'm featured in an interview, but the goal is really for people who are interested in filmmaking to have access to all these different components. I'm not gonna make you guys get sick of me by being featured in every section."
As for the technical aspects, the self-proclaimed "near-luddite" claims she's not too tech-savvy. She tells E! News exclusively, "I'm not on the internet that much but I have a BlackBerry, so I definitely email nonstop all day long. But not that much time on the actual computer.
"And I've never Twittered before."