Make mistakes.

Try things.

This is a job about your imagination.

You're making a movie influenced by life.

You're making a character influenced by a human,

and you want to make it as human as possible.

What is their desire?

Desire is at the root of everything.

I have not been to a traditional drama school.

I've been working for 25 years, and I learned by doing,

and then I pieced together different things

that are helpful for me that I want to share with you.

Green-screen acting is kind of the purest form

of acting because you're inventing

both what's outside of you and what's inside of you

as an actor.

We're going to do a scene where I've just found out

my boyfriend's cheating on me, and I'm entering his apartment.

You want to scour the space to see

what you might use that would be emotionally relevant.

Help the camera catch what's being read.

Get very close to the camera, to give a feeling of what

you might be going through.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When I was asked to play Jackie Kennedy,

I was terrified, which is always a good reason to do something.

I always work with a dialect coach.

For Jackie, every single syllable,

every breath had to be exactly the same.

When you see where the breaths are,

you can read what is sort of happening underneath what

the person is saying.

This is a joyful, creative process,

that you don't need to be afraid of making mistakes.

[SNEEZES] Thank you.

That's how you sneeze on cue.

[LAUGHS]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Your job is to imagine someone else's life.

That is what we do.

We say, I wonder what that person feels and thinks,

and that's the experience in a movie theater.

We're sharing this social experience

with other people for two hours, caring

about someone else's life.

It's the act of empathy.

I'm Natalie Portman, and this is my MasterClass.

[MUSIC PLAYING]