Natalie Portman Thinks She’s So Smart

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It's no secret that Natalie Portman is a smart cookie. Sure she went to Harvard. And, yeah, she speaks five languages (English, Hebrew, French, German, and Japanese - oh, and a little Spanish). But does that mean she gets to rub it in our faces!?

Hello Magazine reports that Natalie Portman spent some time at Columbia University in New York, giving a lecture on terrorism and personal freedom, as part of a promotional event arranged by MTVU, MTV's college TV network.

The Cold Mountain star made quite an impression on students at Columbia University in New York when she went along to work as a stand-in professor on Monday. The pretty performer is no stranger to the goings-on of a college campus, however, as she studied for her own qualification at Harvard between 1999 and 2003.

Casually dressed in blue jeans and a loose-fitting top, Natalie looked rather less intimidating than her shaven-headed character in latest movie offering V For Vendetta. The actress, who says people took her for a troublemaker while she was sporting the skinhead look, has since grown her brunette locks back.

But that's not to say she's lost her ability to surprise her fans. Television viewers stateside were left in stitches last weekend when the Israeli-born celeb performed a spoof rap song on Saturday Night Live in which she parodied many of her best-known movie roles.

The Bwog (Columbia University's undergrad magazine blog) has this to say about Portman's professorial debut (via Just Jared):

It turns out that Ms. Portman's cameo in Professor Stuart Gottlieb's Terrorism and Counterterrorism class was part of a MTV-U promotion for her latest flick, V for Vendetta, in which her character mounts a revolutionary campaign against a totalitarian government and generally blows shit up.

A sampling of the truths Ms. Portman imparted in the 20-minute Q&A session following a somber Frontline documentary on Al Qaeda, Guantanamo and the CIA's counterterrorism tactics:

- "My immediate reaction is that torture is wrong."
- "I don't think it's right to take down the Twin Towers."
- "Censorship is bad."

I know that if I had gone to Harvard, and spoke five languages, and made 20 movies, and won a Golden Globe, and had made millions of dollars, by the time I was 24, then I could give a lecture at Coumbia too. You're not that special, Natalie.

Previously: Natalie Portman Rap Video from Saturday Night Live