Mila Kunis and Darren Aronofsky in Natalie Portman’s defense

Her fiancé and film choreographer Benjamin Millepied, Mila Kunis, who co-stared in the movie, and Darren Aronofsky, the director, were keen to defend the actress.

Sarah Lane, Natalie Portman’s double for the dance scenes in Black Swan, hasn’t supported the actress who won all the honors. The soloist of American Ballet Theatre doesn’t like the fact that face of the actress has been built on her body during production, and that ultimately, she is cited only as a stuntwoman in the film’s credits. The dancer claimed that Natalie Portman doesn’t deserve her Oscar.

“On the full body shots, I would say five percent are Natalie,” Sarah recently told Entertainment Weekly.

This statement didn’t please the Oscar-winning team. Benjamin Millepied, the choreographer of the movie and future husband of the actress, was the first to respond. Then it was the turn of the director of Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, to justify the award for the actress.

“Here is the reality. I had my editor count shots. There are 139 dance shots in the film. 111 are Natalie Portman untouched. 28 are her dance double Sarah Lane. If you do the math that’s 75 percent Natalie Portman,” Darren said in a statement (via Entertainment Weekly). “What about duration? The shots that feature the double are wide shots and rarely play for longer than one second. There are two complicated longer dance sequences that we used face replacement. Even so, if we were judging by time over 90 percent would be Natalie Portman. ”

Mila Kunis – who plays Lilly in the film – was the next to be heard. “Natalie danced her ass off. I think it’s unfortunate that this is coming out and taking attention away from [the praise] Natalie deserved and got,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “She did do every ounce of every one of her dances,” Kunis says of her co-star. “[Lane] wasn’t used for everything. It was more like a safety net. If Nat wasn’t able to do something, you’d have a safety net. The same thing that I had – I had a double as a safety net. We all did. No one ever denied it.”

Image source: YouTube