FILM · 2016
Jackie
31 archived facts 7 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (31)
- #001
After Natalie Portman was cast, Pablo Larraín asked screenwriter Noah Oppenheim to remove every page of the script that did not involve Jackie Kennedy, because he wanted the film to be entirely about her and her experience. The 120-page script was cut down to one hundred pages, all of them featuring Jackie.
- #002
The actual pink suit Jackie Kennedy wore when John F. Kennedy was assassinated is now kept in archives in Maryland. At the family's request, it will not be displayed to the public until 2103.
- #003
Every character in the film was based directly on a real-life counterpart. The only fictional character was the Priest (Sir John Hurt), who was a composite drawn from several reported accounts of Jackie Kennedy consulting various priests about her faith.
- #004
The character played by Billy Crudup, credited only as "The Journalist," was meant to be Theodore H. White of LIFE Magazine, who in real life interviewed Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
- #005
Director Pablo Larraín estimates that a third of the shots in the film were first takes.
- #006
The project was announced with Darren Aronofsky set to direct and Rachel Weisz to play Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Both departed, though Aronofsky stayed on as a producer.
- #007
Producer Ari Handel summed up the costumes Natalie Portman wore to play Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: "Getting Jackie's dresses right was so important, and (costume designer) Madeline (Fontaine) didn't just do that, she made them feel alive and lived-in. They feel so real that they put you into a new relationship with these iconic images we already know. We've all seen Jackie's pink suit, but when you see Natalie, when Portman takes it off, you suddenly realize this woman spent a full twenty-four hours in clothes soaked in her husband's blood. It's an instinctive reminder of what she went through."
- #008
After her husband's death, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis gave two interviews, one to LIFE Magazine and one to historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who recorded eight hours with Jackie. She never spoke publicly about that period again. Transcripts of some of the interviews, however, were heavily edited by Jackie, which left Natalie Portman wondering what Jackie wanted kept secret and why. That research into her habit of severe editing became a key element of Portman's portrayal. Portman said: "It helped me look carefully at the gaps in the information. What was erased, and why? Did she say too much? Knowing there were gaps also gave me a sense of freedom to imagine the moments no one has had real knowledge of since."
- #009
In the only scene where he had a chance to speak, Caspar Phillipson was dubbed with the real voice of John F. Kennedy.
- #010
One of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's (Natalie Portman) most revealing relationships in the film is with Nancy Tuckerman, her White House social secretary and lifelong confidante. Greta Gerwig took on the role of Jackie's childhood friend and White House ally. They had appeared together in No Strings Attached (2011), so the bond between the characters never felt forced. Portman said: "Nancy was one of Jackie's oldest friends, so their relationship really sheds light on how she felt about more private matters like her marriage and her children, and Greta is such a unique actor. She's so smart, engaging and sensitive." Director Pablo Larraín added: "The bond between Natalie and Greta is so real because they're actually friends, and you can feel it. Greta brought an incredible sensitivity to playing the one person in this film who is there for Jackie. The shoulder Jackie could cry on. She brought out something very beautiful."
- #011
There was also an eerie moment that struck Pablo Larraín while watching Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's White House Tour (1962). "Suddenly, while Jackie is in the Lincoln Bedroom, she starts talking about what happened to Lincoln's widow after he was killed," Pablo recalled. "In a very strange way, it's almost like a premonition of what will happen to her. It seemed very important to me to include that moment, a sign of the weight she carried inside."
- #012
Today "Camelot" is often used to refer to John F. Kennedy's time as President of the United States. But it was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who actually put the idea forward after Kennedy's death. Jackie's real-life interview with LIFE Magazine inspired the real interview depicted in the film. In it, Jackie spoke of her husband's love for the 1960 Lerner and Loewe musical "Camelot," which was later filmed in the 1960s, and especially of its lyrics: "Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot." That brief shining moment became a powerful descriptor of Kennedy's echoing, sudden loss. In the interview Jackie said: "There will be great Presidents again, but there will never be another Camelot."
- #013
Filming lasted twenty-three days for the scenes in Paris and ten days in Washington DC and Baltimore.
- #014
Just as Natalie Portman had to play Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Peter Sarsgaard had to overcome the fact that he did not closely resemble Robert F. Kennedy. A dental prosthesis took Sarsgaard deeper into the character. Sarsgaard said: "Bobby has such a recognizable face that I was struggling with it. Then Pablo Larraín said, 'Why don't you add something simple, like Bobby's very distinctive teeth?' For me it was less about copying his teeth than capturing their feel. I didn't even wear them all the time, because I always wanted it to be subtle enough that you wouldn't necessarily notice."
- #015
The Kennedy compound is in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. The scenes in the film that are supposed to take place in Hyannis Port were shot in Maryland, and the result was a house and grounds that look nothing like the real home or Cape Cod.
- #016
In the scene where Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (Natalie Portman) and Bobby (Peter Sarsgaard) walk through the cemetery in the fog, Jackie loses her high heels in the muddy grass. Portman improvised Jackie's reaction to this.
- #017
Although he went on to make other films, this was the last film of Sir John Hurt's to be released during his lifetime.
- #018
It was Pablo Larraín's idea to include John F. Kennedy's White House Tour (1962), which first aired on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1962, and was watched by more than fifty-six million viewers. Jackie, drawing an unprecedented advantage from television's new Golden Age, had invited America and the world into the newly refurbished White House in a way that was both public and personal, and that after her husband's death would seem to bookmark his presidency with a more somber view for the public.
- #019
Production designer Jean Rabasse and his team researched extensively not only old footage but also the history of the famous televised White House Tour, so that the sets could exactly replicate what viewers saw. "I had an assistant who spent two months researching the name of every painting to find its height. The amount of research we had to do was incredible, but it was very important," Rabasse noted. "You had to see the beauty and splendor Jackie wanted to share through her tour."
- #020
For Natalie Portman, one particularly stormy and evocative scene stands out as a fictional moment: Jackie wanders the White House trying on a desperate series of dresses and gowns while listening to a recording of "Camelot," none of which seem to express what she wants at a moment when all her instincts are coming undone yet she must somehow, some way, keep up the facade. Pablo Larraín said of the scene: "The most stylish woman in the world doesn't know how to dress because suddenly she didn't know exactly who she was. Our idea was for her to just keep trying on dresses, and with Natalie it became a beautiful, sad metaphor for an internal identity crisis."
- #021
Although the film focuses on John F. Kennedy's funeral, it was interesting that it did not dramatize John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's coffin as he passed by the family. The real-life event and famous moment was captured on video and in photographs. Over the years it has been assembled and dramatized in numerous productions depicting Kennedy's funeral.
- #022
Natalie Portman felt: "I think one of the most exciting things about working with Pablo Larraín was that he didn't have Americans' reverence for the Kennedys. He was able to approach the film in a less orthodox way, with an intense, un-shy emotion. He took the project in a completely unexpected and forward-thinking direction."
- #023
Pablo Larraín was drawn to the idea of mixing and matching well-documented historical events: the motorcade in Dallas, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson taking the oath of office aboard Air Force One to become the next President, John F. Kennedy's grand state funeral, and the final burial at Arlington National Cemetery beside an eternal flame, alongside moments that no one could ever document and that can only be boldly imagined.
- #024
Pablo Larraín admired and was moved by the way Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis allowed herself to become a kind of channel for the public's collective feelings of grief and doubt after the first Presidential assassination of the twentieth century, since President William McKinley was assassinated at 4:07 p.m. on Friday, September 6, 1901. "The United States never had a royal family, and yet in that moment Jackie became like a Queen without a throne, the mother of a mourning nation," Pablo observed. "Even as she endured so much pain and shock, she carried all of their sorrow and grief. She put everything on her back and kept going. She couldn't plan these events, but when the moment came she carried herself with great grace and extraordinary love."
- #025
The task of dressing Natalie Portman in Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's legendary outfits fell to costume designer Madeline Fontaine. One of her greatest challenges was recreating the distinctive strawberry-pink Chanel-style suit and pink pillbox hat that Jackie wore during the Dallas motorcade, an eerily candy-colored outfit forever burned into the minds of everyone who remembers that day. The garment itself, hand-sewn for Jackie at the New York City fashion house Chez Ninon, became a key Camelot motif.
- #026
Of the White House Tour (1962), hosted by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Pablo Larraín said: "When I saw the White House tour, I couldn't stop watching it. It said so much about Jackie and who she would become. I knew we had to include it in the film. She had never appeared on television like that before, and it wasn't something she was comfortable with, but John encouraged her to do it, partly because she was being criticized unfairly. Even though it was privately funded, since taxpayer dollars were being spent on the renovation, she was still magnificent in presenting the tour in such a compelling way." In her presentation, Jackie in fact emphasized that she felt the White House should be thought of not only as the President's home and workplace, but as a showcase of American history and artistic culture and a place of national pride.
- #027
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis lived a multifaceted life full of power and influence; but when it came to writing about her, screenwriter and journalist Noah Oppenheim came to feel that the most compelling story that spoke to her spirit was the very short yet remarkably significant period the First Lady spent almost alone in the White House after her husband's death.
- #028
One of Sir John Hurt's final film performances.
- #029
President John F. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson) has a total screen time of roughly one minute and forty seconds in the film.
- #030
Ultimately, everyone on set was astonished by how Natalie Portman seemed almost consumed by the essence of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Producer Mickey Liddell said: "In that moment she really was Jackie Kennedy. It was clear how much she worked, how much she read and how much she prepared; there was not a single false note."
- #031
Natalie Portman said of working with Sir John Hurt, who played the Priest: "Even though Pablo Larraín took us in an unexpected direction, John brought a lot to the role. Pablo told John that the Priest might be a little bored with Jackie, which was a somewhat shocking idea. I mean, her husband was assassinated, who wouldn't be understanding? But he made the scenes very interesting, just having someone who doesn't console. It helped me. When you go into the depths of Jackie's struggle with her faith, you see her wrestling with why God created so much pain. Ultimately the Priest sees who she really is, her most confessional self."
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