Black Swan - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Black Swan or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Black Swan

[jim]

The Fly (1986) is speculated as an influence behind the movie particularly the hallucination scenes which Nina mentally begins her transformation from girl to swan which she has a rash on her back. Her body gets painfully contorted and her body changes shape. She pulls pointy black feathers out of the rash on her back. Her legs snap backwards like a bird's legs. Her toes stick together becoming webbed like swan's feet and big black feathers cover hear arms and her arms transform into swan wings.

[kenzi]

Nina's name in the original screenplay was Alexandria.

[ray]

Ksenia Solo who plays Veronica/Little Swan was also a ballet dancer and she has a injury to her back which prevent her from doing ballet.

[chris]

Sarah Lane, Natalie Portman's dance double, appears in 23 seconds of the opening dance scene. The final 85 seconds of the sequence is unaltered performance by Portman. The 23 seconds in which Lane appears is all en pointe footwork. The dance with Rothbart and the en pointe exit was done by Portman.

[darrell]

Both Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman have praised choreographer Benjamin Millepied for altering the choreography enough to allow them to do most of their own dancing and to help them appear like professionals.

[tom]

Marcia Jean Kurtz: Actress with roles in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (2000) and The Wrestler (2008), appears briefly as the ballet company's costumer.

[nicholas]

Mark Margolis appeared in an "under-five" role as a favor to Darren Aronofsky. His dialogue was cut from the film.

[chad]

In the long years before production began, former Darren Aronofsky leading ladies Rachel Weisz (The Fountain (2006)) and Jennifer Connelly (Requiem for a Dream (2000), later reunited with Aronofsky for Noah (2014)) were considered to play Beth MacIntyre.

[bernard]

The budget on this film was so tight that when Natalie Portman had a rib dislocated during a lift and called the producer for help, she was told that the production could not afford a medic. Portman stated that if they needed to cut items from the budget they could take away her trailer to hire a medic. The next day her trailer was gone. Portman also had to receive physical therapy during filming and one of her sessions was incorporated into the final cut. Choreographer Benjamin Millepied brought in Michelle Rodriguez Nouel, an actual physical therapist, and director Darren Aronofsky told Portman to stay in character during the appointment. Subsequent dance sequences were filmed by having Portman lifted from her arm pits rather than her sides to avoid repeating the injury. It took Portman six weeks to fully recover.

[gerald]

The script took around ten years to make it to the screen.

[edgar]

Darren Aronofsky first approached Natalie Portman about making a film set in the dance world in 2001 when Portman was 20 years old. Aronofsky envisioned it as a film loosely based on "The Double: A Petersburg Poem" by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

[scarlett]

Natalie Portman stated that, after the experience she had working with director Darren Aronofsky, she would gladly work with him again at any time.

[tamara]

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Natalie Portman stated that one of the most difficult challenges of making the film - aside from training and dancing - was modifying her voice. She stated that before working with Darren Aronofsky, directors had constantly criticized what they perceived to be the childish quality of her voice, and encouraged her to work with vocal coaches to make it sound deeper and more adult. The role of Nina required Portman to regress backwards and make her voice more child-like. She felt that doing so took her back to a point she worked hard to leave behind.

[maureen]

Antonio Banderas and Hugh Jackman were considered for the role of Thomas Leroy.

[gabriel]

Though Natalie Portman does mostly all of her own dancing, ABT professional ballerina Sarah Lane acted as her body and dance double. These doubles shots involve complex en pointe work (fouettes, pique turns) and virtually all camera shots that focus below the waist on Nina's legs and feet.

[ruby]

Although it is left for viewers to decide if Nina lives or died and her fate left unanswered. The final shot of Nina's face dissolving in a bright white light hints that Nina may had succumbed to her stab wound and died.

[carl]

Darren Aronofsky told journalist Kim Masters in a radio interview (KCRW's "The Business" broadcast February 14, 2011) that Natalie Portman not only trained for a year as a dancer to prepare for the role, but paid for the the training out of her own pocket until the film found investors. Aronofsky attributed the film's getting made at all to Portman's dedication and enthusiasm.

[nicholas]

Natalie Portman's character Nina succumbs to her dark side when she is selected to play the lead in a new production of Swan Lake. In the prequel trilogy of "Star Wars", Natalie Portman played Padme Amidala, the secret wife of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker whom succumbs to his dark side and becomes Darth Vader, when he is manipulated into pledging himself to the Dark Side of the Force by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious.

[lena]

The scenes involving Nina with her mother Erica were the last scenes filmed.