Natalie Portman Shares Her Favorite Part About Playing Jane Foster In The MCU

Natalie Portman as Jane Foster in Thor: The Dark World
(Image credit: (Marvel))

Hey, Thor, what ever happened to Jane Foster? Okay, so maybe he’s been a bit preoccupied with his franchise redesign in Ragnarok, not going for the head in Infinity War and trying to get Captain Marvel to flinch in a stare down with her in Endgame to break the tough news, so I’ll tell you: the cute MCU couple broke up off screen between The Dark World and Ragnarok. Maybe you couldn’t tell by the hero’s breakup haircut and new space buddies he’s been hanging around with.

No matter what happened between the two, Natalie Portman made it out to the world premiere of Avengers: Endgame in Los Angeles on Monday and gushed about her time in the MCU at Marvel’s red carpet. In her words:

It's been so exciting to get to be part of this whole Marvel universe and get to see all of these incredible new characters be revealed to audiences every year and, of course, to have women in science be front and center is incredible, to spread that culture throughout the world.

Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster was a great addition to the MCU because she was such a driven scientist who played a vital part in the earlier events of the franchise with her fellow “Science Avengers,” Dr. Selvig and Darcy Lewis. Her involvement in the Thor movies was cut short when their story faced a bit of a dead end creatively. Taika Waititi came in and fixed the hero’s franchise right up with a looser, more spacier addition to the character’s story, but that meant Natalie Portman was lost her place within the MCU.

The actress was reportedly not happy with Thor: The Dark World when director Patty Jenkins left the project due to “creative differences” and Alan Taylor took over the sequel. Since Jenkins later went on to helm Wonder Woman, I’ll side with Portman on this one because the DCEU origin was much more memorable than Dark World. (Chris Hemsworth even called the movie “meh” once.)

When asked about her potential return to the MCU, Natalie Portman has showed her openness to come back if asked, but has said that as far as she knows that won’t be happening anytime soon. I wouldn’t count on it either. I just don’t see Jane Foster fitting into Thor’s character arc after his past few appearances; the vision of the franchise with the couple we saw in the beginning has grown apart into something bolder and funnier than a love story.

As indicated by Natalie Portman’s recent comments, the MCU is always shifting, changing and bringing in more exciting characters to expand the universe, such as Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie, a new fan favorite in the Thor movies we can’t wait to see keep being badass. Endgame certainly promises to shake up the MCU as it will mark the end of the franchise so far … but Thor 4 may be in the works per recent words from Thompson. You never know who is going to show up in these movies, so maybe that could be a platform for Portman to return.

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.