FILM · 2010 · USA
Black Swan
- Directed by
- Darren Aronofsky
- Runtime
- 108 min
- Studio
- Fox Searchlight Pictures, Cross Creek Pictures, Protozoa Pictures
35 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
A committed dancer struggles to maintain her sanity after winning the lead role in a production of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake."
Summary: TMDB
All facts (35)
- #001
In a radio interview with journalist Kim Masters (KCRW's "The Business," February 14, 2011), Darren Aronofsky said that Natalie Portman not only trained as a dancer for a year just to prepare for the role, but also paid for the training out of her own pocket until the film found investors. Aronofsky attributed the film's production to Portman's dedication and enthusiasm. He even took his role in Your Highness (2011) mainly for the money, in case he needed to help co-finance Black Swan.
- #002
Mila Kunis was brought into the project after lead actress Natalie Portman recommended her to director Darren Aronofsky. Kunis had a video chat with Aronofsky over Skype and got the role without going through a formal audition.
- #003
There is a mirror or a reflective surface in nearly every frame of the film. The one notable place where there is none is when Nina is on stage, performing the Black Swan at the film's climax, when her "dark side" takes over.
- #004
In an interview with Charlie Rose, Natalie Portman said that aside from the training and dancing, one of the hardest challenges of making the film was changing her voice. Before working with Darren Aronofsky, she said, directors constantly criticized what they perceived as the childish quality in her voice and encouraged her to work with vocal coaches to make it sound deeper and more adult. The role of Nina required Portman to pull back and make her voice more childlike. She felt that doing so took her back to a point she had worked hard to move past.
- #005
Natalie Portman revealed that director Darren Aronofsky would cunningly try to turn her and Mila Kunis against each other during the shoot in order to heighten the on-screen tension between their characters. This involved keeping the two actresses apart during filming and sending each of them frightening text messages about the other's performance that day. According to Kunis, however, it backfired, because they were already good friends before the shoot, and whenever they heard the other had done really good work, they supported each other with congratulations rather than rivalry.
- #006
While applying blood to the knife wound on Natalie Portman, the crew told director Darren Aronofsky that she was uncomfortable with the blood getting on her tights because it looked like a period. Aronofsky said he had placed the blood there intentionally to symbolize Nina becoming a woman. As a result, Portman stated that she does not believe Nina dies at the end of the film. She sees it more as Nina having to kill the little girl in order to become a woman.
- #007
While shooting Black Swan, Natalie Portman suffered many injuries, which caused delays in the production. The most common injury was her left toe, which had to be re-taped while the cast and crew waited. Such delays happened so often that they were named "Natalie Portman's Left Toe Delay," later shortened to Portmantoe.
- #008
Natalie Portman lost 20 kilos to look more like a ballerina.
- #009
Natalie Portman began ballet training before receiving a formal script, on pure faith that the film would be made.
- #010
(At around the 47th minute) Natalie Portman met her future ex-husband, choreographer Benjamin Millepied, on the set of this film. Portman noted the irony of being asked whether her character would have sex with Nina, and joked that she was clearly a good actress.
- #011
Although the film was never marketed that way, Darren Aronofsky always maintained that it should be a psychological horror film.
- #012
Both Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman praised choreographer Benjamin Millepied for altering the choreography enough to let them do most of their own dancing and to help them look like professionals.
- #013
The methods Nina uses to break in her pointe shoes are all common: removing the sole, re-sewing the ribbons, burning the tips of the ribbons to prevent fraying, spraying the toe of the shoe, and using glass and resin to grate the sole for traction.
- #014
The film's budget was so tight that when Natalie Portman dislocated a rib in an elevator and called the producer for help, she was told the production could not afford a medic. Portman said that if cuts had to be made, they could take her trailer and hire a doctor. The next day her trailer was gone. Portman also had to undergo physical therapy during the shoot, and one of her sessions was included in the final cut. Choreographer Benjamin Millepied hired a real physiotherapist, Michelle Rodriguez Nouel, and director Darren Aronofsky told Portman to stay in character during the appointment. The subsequent dance scenes were filmed with Portman being lifted from under her arms rather than her sides to prevent the injury from recurring. It took Portman six weeks to fully recover.
- #015
(At around 1 hour 4 minutes) During the dance club scene, most of the people surrounding Nina are visions of herself, Lily, Thomas or other aspects of Swan Lake. The only point where you can clearly see Nina's sparkles as the Black Swan on the dance floor is when the voices saying Nina's name are heard. While it is nearly impossible to spot most of them when watching the film at full speed, there are over 1,000 manipulated images in the 45-second scene.
- #016
Natalie Portman's body and dance double, Sarah Lane, made a public statement in March 2011, shortly before the DVD/Blu-Ray release, claiming that the film's producers had asked her not to give interviews until after awards season so that most of the credibility for the dancing would go to Portman. A promotional video released about the special effects used in the film was also altered and omitted some points showing how Lane's face was digitally replaced with Portman's during the complex dance moves Lane was brought in to perform. Choreographer (and Portman's fiancé) Benjamin Millepied disputed Lane's comments: "It was so believable, it was fantastic, that beautiful movement quality. There are articles now talking about her dance double [Sarah Lane] that are making it sound like she did a lot of the work, but really she did the footwork, and the fouettés, and one diagonal [phrase] in the studio. Honestly, 85% of that movie is Natalie." Director Darren Aronofsky also debunked Lane's claims: "The truth is, there are 139 dance shots in the film. Twenty-eight of them are her dance double Sarah Lane. If you do the math, that's 80%."
- #017
It took about ten years for the script to reach the screen.
- #018
Darren Aronofsky initially hoped for a budget of about 28-30 million dollars. In the end, the budget raised for the film was about 13 million dollars.
- #019
Mila Kunis learned to dance en pointe after training with a ballet instructor five hours a day, seven days a week, for three months. She had done some casual ballet as a child.
- #020
Director Darren Aronofsky initially considered telling this story as part of the plot of The Wrestler (2008), and was in fact developing a project about a love affair between a ballerina and a wrestler, but he quickly realized that taking on two worlds like wrestling and ballet was too much for one film.
- #021
Natalie Portman stated that filming the explicit scenes was "really uncomfortable," but she believed the scenes were necessary to show Nina exploring personal pleasure as part of her evolution.
- #022
(At about 15 minutes) Natalie Portman's dance double, Sarah Lane, appears in the film as the woman dressed in black when Nina passes through the alley and sees her own face.
- #023
Days before the DVD/Blu-Ray release, director Darren Aronofsky pushed back against dancer Sarah Lane's accusations, claiming that Natalie Portman earned credit for the dancing in the film and saying: "I am responding to end this and to defend my actress. Natalie sweated for a long time to deliver a great physical and emotional performance. And I don't want anyone to think that the person they watched is not her. She is." Co-star Mila Kunis also counteracted Lane's comments: "Lane wasn't used for everything. She was more like a safety net. If Natalie couldn't do something, she had the same thing I had; I had a safety net too. Nobody ever denied that."
- #024
Natalie Portman hit her head while filming a scene and suffered a bad concussion that required an MRI.
- #025
Nina's costumes change color throughout the film. At the beginning she is seen wearing pink and white, which especially symbolize innocence, purity and virtue. After the official party she wears gray and other neutral colors, symbolizing dullness, neutrality and indecision. Later, when she and Lily go out, she begins wearing black, symbolizing maturity, rebellion and darkness. When her hallucinations worsen, such as in the scene where she is dressed in the swan costume, she is seen wearing white, gray and black, symbolizing confusion and loss of reality.
- #026
(At about 24 minutes) When Nina calls her mother to tell her she was accepted for the role, the letters written on the mirror were written by Natalie Portman herself.
- #027
Nina's (Natalie Portman) harmful, compulsive skin-picking disorder is a real impulse-control disorder known in the medical profession as dermatillomania, and can also be called DMT or derm, neurotic excoriation, or CSP (compulsive skin picking or chronic skin picking).
- #028
(At about 8 minutes) In the training scene near the beginning of the film (when Thomas lightly taps some of the girls on the shoulders), every character except Nina is wearing either all black or a combination of black, gray and/or white. Nina is the only character dressed entirely in white.
- #029
(At about 1 hour 18 minutes) The memorable ballet rehearsal pianist "Jaded Piano Player," who tells Nina she works too hard and needs a break, is played by John Epperson, an artist perhaps better known for his drag persona Lypsinka. Epperson worked as a rehearsal pianist at American Ballet Theatre in the late 1970s and early 1980s, accompanying rehearsals for leading names in the ballet world such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova, Rudolf Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn and Gelsey Kirkland. In the film, Fonteyn is mentioned when the dancers discuss Beth's long career.
- #030
(At about 1 minute) Natalie Portman's dance double, Sarah Lane, appears at the 23rd second of the opening dance scene. The last 85 seconds of the sequence are Portman's unaltered performance. All 23 seconds in which Lane appears are footwork. The dance with Rothbart and the rise en pointe were performed by Portman.
- #031
(At about 51 minutes) The overhead shot of Nina in the bathtub is an exact copy of a shot from the Japanese anime thriller Perfect Blue (1997). Black Swan itself contains numerous similarities to Perfect Blue in both narrative and style, though Aronofsky denied it was an influence.
- #032
Lily always wears black clothing as well as black underwear to indicate that she is Nina's opposite, or the "Black Swan."
- #033
The other dancers seen in the film are members of the Pennsylvania Ballet Company. The film was shot in January 2010 in Purchase, New York, where the company was not performing elsewhere.
- #034
The scenes of Nina with her mother, Erica, were the last scenes shot.
- #035
Winona Ryder spent 10 days shooting her role.
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