Natalie Portman Says Her Relationship with Breakout Film 'The Professional' Is 'Complicated For Me'

Natalie Portman is looking back on her first-ever film role in Léon: The Professional with a fresh perspective.

While speaking with The Hollywood Reporter about her new movie May December for an interview published Wednesday, Portman, 41, described "complicated" feelings about her 1994 breakout film, years after multiple women accused its director Luc Besson of sexual misconduct.

Portman made her film debut at 13 years old with Léon: The Professional, in which she stars as Mathilda, a young girl who strikes up a mentor-mentee relationship with a hitman (Jean Reno) who lives in her apartment building after a corrupt Drug Enforcement Administration agent (Gary Oldman) murders her family.

"It's a movie that's still beloved, and people come up to me about it more than almost anything I've ever made," Portman told the outlet, as she was asked about her feelings on the allegations made against Besson. "And it gave me my career, but it is definitely, when you watch it now, it definitely has some cringey, to say the least, aspects to it."

"So, yes, it's complicated for me," she added.

In May 2018 when Besson was first accused of rape, his lawyer told THR: "Mr. Besson fell off his chair when he learned of these accusations, which he flatly denies."

Elsewhere in the interview, the actress said the allegations against Besson, 64, were "devastating" when asked how she felt when she first heard that news.

"I really didn't know. I was a kid working. I was a kid," she told THR about her own experience working with the director. "But I don't want to say anything that would invalidate anyone's experience."

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The actress has said in the past that she was quickly subjected to sexual harassment at a young age after the movie rocketed her to fame.

"I understood very quickly, even as a 13-year-old, that if I were to express myself sexually I would feel unsafe and that men would feel entitled to discuss and objectify my body to my great discomfort," she once said at a Women's March event in Los Angeles.

While speaking with THR, Portman told the outlet that she "always want[s] to tell [child actors] to treat it as a game more than a job because I don't think kids should really have jobs," when asked what advice she offers those who start acting on screen at the same age she did.

"It was fun. I definitely knew how to take things seriously as a kid, but I loved it," she said, when asked whether she treated her early roles as games or jobs. "I really, really loved it."

May December will premiere at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.