Natalie Portman's College Career

Every year at the end of the school year college students look forward to graduating and starting their life, whether it is a career, starting a family or even going back to grad school to further their education. In 2015 an actor named Natalie Portman gave the commencement speech to the graduating class at Harvard University where she had previously attended. In Portman’s speech she discusses with the graduates and the audience about her insecurities, time she spent at Harvard University, family and her career as a Grammy winning actress. Throughout her entire speech she is able to successfully convey her message to her audience through the use of humor and personal stories all of which the audience is able to relate to enjoy.
In the beginning …show more content…
She said “When I got to graduation, after four years of trying to get excited about something else, I admitted to myself that I couldn’t wait to go back and make more films, I wanted to tell stories, imagine the lives of others and help others do the same. My Harvard degree represents to me the curiosity and invention that were encouraged here, the friendships I’ve maintained (Portman, 2015, 11:03). By her saying this it makes the audience also realize that life is unpredictable and we don’t always know exactly which way our path will go or where will end up. At the end of her speech she also talks about how she auditioned for a role in a movie where she would be playing the role of a professional ballerina and how she had no experience in dance whatsoever and that if she hadn’t of taken the risk of playing this role and pushing past her own limitations she would have missed out on an opportunity that was one of her a major accomplishment in her …show more content…
Although she did have a piece of paper to go off of it didn’t seem to take away from her speech and was barely noticeable, due to the fact that she would only look at it occasionally rather than reading directly from it. This allowed for her to be more personal and entertaining from the audience. However throughout the speech it does show the audience a few times and it seems like a majority of the audience at times were somewhat bored and weren’t really paying attention to what she was talking about especially the ones sitting far away since it was a big audience. Portman does deliver the speech very well and throws in a few jokes here and there that make the audience laugh helping them to stay engaged in her speech. The speech was also a good length and had a nice flow to it. Portman didn’t really go off topic at all which allowed for the speech to not drag on without getting her point across. She was also dressed very appropriate for the speech which made her be able to be taken more