10 Actors Who Broke The "Child Actor" Curse

9. Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman has become such a staple of modern-day entertainment it's easy to forget she was a child actress at all. A degree in Harvard probably doesn't hurt that appearance, but it's still a fact that Portman began her career as an understudy in the off-Broadway play Ruthless! at 12. Soon after, she auditioned and secured the role of murder witness and daughter figure to Jean Reno's assassin in Luc Besson's The Professional.

As a teenager, she worked with the likes of Woody Allen, Michael Mann and Tim Burton.

Since then, now 39, the actress won an Oscar for Black Swan and has seen several nominationans.