Natalie Portman Harvard Commencement Speech 2015
Natalie Portman
Hello, Class of 2015.
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I am so honored to be here today.
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Dean Khurana, faculty, parents, and most especially graduating students, thank you so much for inviting me.
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The Senior Class Committee, it’s genuinely one of the most exciting things I’ve ever been asked to do.
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I have to admit primarily because I can’t deny it as it was leaked in the WikiLeaks release of the Sony hack, that when I was invited, I replied, and I directly quote my own email,
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“Wow! This is so nice! I’m going to need some funny ghost writers. Any ideas?”
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So I have to admit that today even 12 years after graduation, I’m still insecure about my own worthiness.
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I have to remind myself today you’re here for a reason.
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Today I feel much like I did when I came to Harvard Yard as a freshman in 1999 when you guys were, to my continued shock and horror, still in kindergarten.
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I felt like there had been some mistake that I wasn’t smart enough to be in this company, and that every time I opened my mouth, I would have to prove I wasn’t just a dumb actress.
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So I start with an apology. This won’t be very funny.
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I’m not a comedian. And I didn’t get a ghost writer.
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But I am here to tell you today Harvard is giving you all diplomas tomorrow.
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You are here for a reason.
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Sometimes your insecurities and your inexperience may lead you, too, to embrace other people’s expectations, standards, or values.
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But you can harness that inexperience to carve out your own path, one that is free of the burden of knowing how things are supposed to be, a path that is defined by its own particular set of reasons.
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The other day I went to an amusement park with my soon-to-be 4-year-old son.
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And I watched him play arcade games.
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He was incredibly focused, throwing his ball at the target.
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Jewish mother that I am, I skipped 20 steps and was already imagining him as a major league player with what is his aim and his arm and his concentration.
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But then I realized that when he won, he was playing to trade in his tickets for the crappy plastic toys.
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The prize was much more exciting than the game to get it.
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But all of these aspects were shaded by the little 10-cent plastic men with sticky stretchy blue arms that adhere to the walls.
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That — that was the prize.
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