In her 12-years-later second hosting gig on last night’s Saturday Night Live, it was perhaps unavoidable that Natalie Portman would reprise her 2006 image-shattering rap performance. Sure, Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island co-creators Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone are long gone from SNL (Samberg did pop by for a return cameo as Portman’s Viking-helmeted ex), but a viral hit is hard to let be, and, indeed, Portman returned to, once more, drop rhymes and drop kick her Oscar-bait image through a window.
With Beck Bennett taking over the supercilious interviewer chores from 2006's Chris Parnell, the video saw Portman, unable to stifle her rage at the press tour grind any longer, bust out into a profanity-laden rap about, among other things, why punk-ass male interviewers shouldn’t ask her if she has trouble balancing family and career, or if she’s seen the new Star Wars movies, since “they’re much better than—” Cue Portman, in full Amidala gear, pulling a gun on a cowering fanboy and demanding, Jules in Pulp Fiction-style, “Say something about the motherfucking prequels, bitch!” (She will also not hear any trash talk about her boy Jar Jar, so don’t even.)
And if, as Bennett says of this new Portman, “It seems like you’re almost exactly the same, but with current references” (eating Tide pods, going through childbirth on “bomb kush”), at least she leaves the condescending interviewer with a little something current to remember her by. After Bennet smirkingly questions the impact of “those #TimesUp pins,” she slams one home right in the middle of his forehead asking “How’s that for impact?” Having learned nothing, Bennett gives her a “Well, actually…” in return, which, considering Portman’s O.G. persona whenever she returns to SNL, is a big mistake.