Natalie Portman may be the hottest young thing in Hollywood right now but she's not letting it go to her head. She even turned down a coveted lead role in Robert Redford's adaptation of the best-selling novel The Horse Whisperer because it clashed with another commitment--she'd already agreed to make her Broadway debut in The Diary Of Anne Frank.

For Natalie, born in Jerusalem, Israel, it's been a long-standing dream. She's read Anne's diaries 10 times, visited the Amsterdam home where Anne was hidden and met the woman who gave her refuge. And, considering the impressive resume Natalie has at just 15, there's little chance that turning down Robert Redford's offer will slow her career.

The talented actress has been in demand since her stunning debut at age 13, playing a version of a gun moll in The Professional. Since then, she's appeared in Beautiful Girls as a teen who captures the eye of Timothy Hutton, and Heat, as Al Pacino's suicidal stepdaughter. She pops up in Woody Allen's musical Everybody Says I Love You and in Mars Attacks!, playing the wayward offspnng of Jack Nicholson and Glenn Close.

"I play the President's daughter," she explains. "She becomes dark and rebellious. I don't think this girl's like Chelsea."

It's not the usual array of films a child star would choose but Natalie says she's totally uninterested in doing a crowd-pleaser like Home Alone. "I'd do a kids' movie if it was realistic but those hunky dory tales are stupid sometmes," she says. "They make kids with real lives feel they are not as happy."

For discerning directors, Natalie is a dream come true. Says Beautiful Girls director Ted Demme, "I saw her in The Professional and she absolutely blew me out of my seat...she's going to be an amazing star."