TCO London Huck 71A

Natalie Portman is playing a bull rider in Anna Rose Holmer’s next film

She’s been cast as a female rodeo star in the writer/director’s Bronco Belle.

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Natalie Portman has already turned plenty of heads in 2017 with her stunning portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy in Pablo Larraín’s Jackie, but her next role has the potential to be even more compelling.

According to various reports, Portman is saddling up to star in Bronco Belle, in which she’ll play a female bull rider attempting to navigate a male-dominated world.

Khurram Longi wrote the screenplay with Emily Blunt in mind after seeing her performance in Edge of Tomorrow, but Blunt has since dropped out – leaving the role wide open for Portman.

Adding another layer of excitement to this announcement, Anna Rose Holmer, the ace writer/director of The Fits, is also on board.

Given how successfully Holmer’s feature debut grappled with the outsider status of its protagonist – a boxing tomboy who hopes to break into a dance troupe – she seems to be an ideal match for the project.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Portman and Holmer have teamed up. They previously collaborated on a music video for James Blake’s ‘My Willing Heart’, taken from his 2016 album ‘The Colour in Anything’.

Though the video features very little in terms of action – it consists only of Portman swimming, lazing about and stroking her pregnant belly – its moody monochrome texture marks an intriguing stylistic departure from Holmer’s previous work.

Before Bronco Belle, Portman is set to appear in Terrence Malick’s Song to Song, Alex Garland’s Annihilation and Xavier Dolan’s The Death and Life of John F Donovan, with the latter pair expected to receive festival premieres later this year.