Natalie Portman’s role in ‘The Lady in the Lake’ made her think about how ‘oppressed people oppress others’

Natalie Portman’s first television role gave her a unique opportunity to explore intersectionality and oppression through the lens of a 1960s crime drama.

The Oscar winner explained that her role as Jewish investigative journalist Maddie Schwartz in the upcoming miniseries Lady in the Lake, set to premiere July 19 on Apple TV+, presented an “interesting” subject matter about “what happens when oppressed people oppress other people.”

“It’s possible to be both oppressed and oppressor,” Natalie Portman told the Guardian. “And sometimes when we’re seeking our own freedom, we don’t realize we’re infringing on someone else’s life.”

Based on the 2019 novel by Laura Lippman, Lady in the Lake follows Maddie, a Baltimore housewife turned journalist who becomes obsessed with the mystery of two separate murders: Tessie Fine (Bianca Belle), an 11-year-old Jewish girl, and Cleo Sherwood (Moses Ingram), a Black activist and working mother.

“At that time and in his community,…