A couple of years ago, / I went to Tokyo with my husband, / and I ate at the most remarkable sushi restaurant. // I don’t even eat fish. // I’m vegan. // So that tells you how good it was. // Even with just vegetables, / this sushi was the stuff / you dreamed about. // The restaurant / has six seats. // My husband and I marveled / at how anyone can make rice so superior to all other rice. // We wondered why they didn’t make a bigger restaurant / and be the most popular place in town. // Our local friend explained to us / that all the best restaurants in Tokyo are that small / and do only one type of dish: / sushi / or tempura, / or teriyaki, / because they want to do that thing well / and beautifully. // And it’s not about quantity. // It’s about taking pleasure / in the perfection and beauty / of the particular. // I’m still learning now / that it’s about good / and maybe never done. // That the joy / and work ethic, and virtuosity we bring to the particular / can impart / a singular type of enjoyment to those we give to / and of course to ourselves. // In my professional life, / it also took me time / to find my own reasons for doing my work. // The first film I was in / came out in 1994. // Again, / appallingly, / the year most of you were born. // I was 13 years old upon the film’s release, / and I can still quote what the New York Times said about me / verbatim. / “Ms. Portman / poses / better than she acts.” // The film / had a universally tepid critic response and went on to bomb // commercially. // That film was called The Professional, / or Leon in Europe. // And today, / 20 years and 35 films later, / it is still the film people approach me about the most / to tell me how much they loved it, / how much it moved them, / how it’s their favorite movie. // I feel lucky that my first experience / releasing a film / was initially such a disaster / by all standards measures. // I learned early / that my meaning / had to be from the experience of making a film / and the possibility of connecting with individuals / rather than the foremost trophies in my industry, / financial and critical success. // And also, / that those initial reactions / could be false predictors of your work’s ultimate legacy. // I started choosing only jobs that I was passionate about / and from which I knew I could glean meaningful experiences. // This thoroughly confused everyone around me: / agents, / producers, / and audiences alike. // I made Goya’s Ghost, / a foreign independent film, / and studied our history visiting the Prado every day for 4 months / as I read about Goya and the Spanish Inquisition. // I made V for Vendetta, / a studio action movie for which I learned everything I could about freedom fighters who otherwise / may be called terrorists. // From Menachem Begin to Weather Underground, / I made Your Highness, / a pothead comedy with Danny McBride / and laughed for 3 months straight. // I was able to own my meaning / and not have it be determined by box office receipts or prestige. // By the time I got to making Black Swan, / the experience was entirely my own. // I felt immune to the worst things anyone could say or write about me, / and to whether an audience felt like going to see my movie or not. // It was instructive for me to see that ballet dancers, / for ballet dancers, / once your technique gets to a certain level, / the only thing that separates you from others is your quirks / or even flaws. // One ballerina was famous for how she turned slightly off-balanced. // You can never / be the best, / technically. // Someone will always have a higher jump / or a more beautiful line. // The only thing you can be the best at is developing / your own self. // Authoring your own experience was very much what Black Swan itself was about. // I worked with Darren Aronofsky, the film’s director, to change my last line in the movie to / "It was perfect." // Because my character Nina is only / artistically successful when she finds perfection and pleasure for herself, / not when she is trying to be perfect in the eyes of others. // So when Black Swan was successful financially / and I began receiving accolades, / I felt honored and grateful to have connected with people. // But the true core of my meaning, / I had already established. / And I needed it to be independent of people’s reactions to me. //