Back in the mid-‘90s, Natalie Portman was a pre-teen actress who got her first big break in “Léon: The Professional.”
However, 30 years after the release of that film, Portman has “complicated” feelings about that movie and its filmmaker Luc Besson. Speaking to THR, she spoke about the “cringey” aspects of ‘Léon’
“It’s a movie that’s still beloved, and people come up to me about it more than almost anything I’ve ever made, and it gave me my career, but it is definitely, when you watch it now, it definitely has some cringey, to say the least, aspects to it […] So, yes, it’s complicated for me.”
‘Léon’ follows the story of a hitman who takes a young girl under his wing and teaches her his assassin techniques after her family is murdered. There have been issues raised around the sexualization of Portman’s young teen character.
The U.S. version of the film framed the story as a father/daughter relationship, but the international version, which was around 20 minutes longer, presented their relationship a bit more sketchily.
It doesn’t help that in recent years Besson has had numerous sexual assault allegations laid out against him. When you read more about Besson, you’ll definitely be left with an impression that the movie is more than just cringe. He once dated a 12-year-old Maïwenn and impregnated her at 15.
In an interview with the French publication L’Express, Maïwenn had claimed that ‘Léon’ was “this love story between a 12-year-old girl and a 30-year-old man [that] was still very much inspired by ours,” and explained how she attempted to write a book about her relationship with Besson in Hollywood.
Art is often the result of one form of dysfunction or another. Besson has made a few great movies over the years — “La Femme Nikita” and ‘Léon’ spring to mind — but his past has always come back to haunt him.