Sarah Lane is a professional ballerina with one of the most respected and prestigious ballet companies in the world — the American Ballet Theatre — and she also filled the role of Natalie Portman’s dance double for “Black Swan.”
Natalie received overwhelming critical acclaim for her physical transformation into a dancer for the psychological thriller – including an Academy Award for Best Actress – but Sarah has claimed that while Natalie’s acting is breathtaking, the film’s producers have been less than honest about the star’s actual dancing.
“I’ve been doing this for 22 years,” Sarah told “20/20” in an interview that aired Friday evening. “To say that someone trained for a year and a half and did what I did in 22 years is degrading not only to me, but to the entire ballet world.”
Sarah, who has spoken out previously on the subject, said claims that the actress did most of the dancing in the film are hurtful.
“There’s so much emotionally that goes into motivating yourself and being able to physically push yourself to reach a certain level that you have to reach to be a professional ballerina with one of the biggest ballet companies in the world and to sustain that standard over a whole career,” she later added. “It really hurts for someone to say that they got a personal trainer and they became what I spent blood, sweat and tears doing every day, all my life, in just a year and a half.”
While the ballerina said she never expected to receive any type of “fame” or credit for the role, she was shocked when the film’s producers openly credited Natalie for most of the extremely difficult en pointe (dancing on one’s toes) scenes, and alleges one of the film’s producers called her to request her silence after she was interviewed by Glamour magazine for an article titled, “The Real Black Swan.”
“He asked if I would please not do any more interviews until after the Oscars because it was bad for Natalie’s image,” she told the news show. “They were trying to create this façade really — that Natalie had done something extraordinary. Something that’s pretty much impossible — to become a professional ballerina in a year and a half.
“Even with as hard as she worked, it takes so much more,” she added. “It takes 22 years, it takes 30 years to become a ballerina.”
“Black Swan’s” director, Darren Aronofsky, refuted Sarah’s claims in a statement released in late March, saying, “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 80% Natalie Portman.”
Despite Sarah’s frustration with what she alleges is misdirected praise, she holds no hard feelings against Natalie and said she absolutely agrees that the actress deserved the Academy Award for her acting performance.
“I think she’s a really beautiful actress. I loved working with her and I definitely think she deserves it,” Sarah said. “I’m just speaking because they’re completely lying about the amount of dancing that Natalie did in the movie.”
As for whether speaking out will negatively affect her career, Sarah said her passion for protecting the classic art form outweighs her fear of repercussions.
“You know, I don’t care. I really don’t,” she said, when asked if she feared consequences for her coming forward with her claims. “I’m just telling people the truth. I have so much respect for this art form and the people who are able to do it beautifully. I want to stand up for them.”
A rep for Fox Searchlight was not immediately available for comment regarding Sarah’s claims when contacted by Access Hollywood on Sunday.
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