Being pregnant forced Natalie Portman to rethink her award season strategy.
"I feel like they're very careful with me. Everyone's like, 'Oh, you don't have to stand up. That's OK.' And I'm like, 'I can stand up out of a chair...still!'" she said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Monday. There are perks, though. "Cutting in the bathroom line is one I'll take," she admitted. "It's nice."
Jimmy Kimmel's wife Molly McNearney also happens to be expecting, "and she's eating constantly," he told Portman. "Are you eating all the time? It's like Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island, 100 percent of the time in our house. Are you like that as well?"
"Yeah," Portman replied. "I feel like I get a little panicky about food availability. If I'm going somewhere, I'm like, 'Will they have something I will want to eat at that point?' Before I go anywhere, I'll have a plate of pancakes or a veggie burger or whatever—just to be prepared."
For example, before the 2017 SAG Awards, "I preemptively ate, so I didn't need to eat."
Kimmel joked, "That could be a new diet plan."
"It's the anti-diet plan," Portman said with a laugh. "It's the opposite."
Portman is up for Best Actress at the 2017 Oscars, going up against Elle's Isabelle Huppert, Loving's Ruth Negga, La La Land's Emma Stone and Florence Foster Jenkins' Meryl Streep. The first time Portman won an Oscar, she was pregnant with her son Aleph Portman-Millepied, now 5. Joking about the timing of both of her pregnancies, she said, "It's like my thing."
Kimmel joked, "Either you wanted to have another baby or you're very superstitious."
"Of course, we don't want this to happen," Kimmel continued, "but if you should go into labor during the Oscar broadcast, I want you to know that as host, I am prepared to deliver the child."
"Fantastic," the Jackie star laughed. "Television history, my friend."
Should Kimmel deliver Portman's second child during ABC's telecast on Feb. 26, he suggested, "You could certainly name the baby after me, or Oscar—or Oscarina?—or something like that."
"Beautiful names," Portman joked. "All of them."