Natalie Portman movies may be big now, but she says, after Star Wars "no director wanted to work with me."

According to a recent interview with NY Magazine, Star Wars wasn't much of a boost to Natalie Portman casting. The actress, whose latest movie is "Knight of Cups" told New York Magazine that it almost ruined her career.

"Everyone thought I was a horrible actress," after taking on the Star Wars prequel trilogy, The Black Swan actress said.

Portman was 13 years old when she was cast as Padme Amidala in George Lucas' Star Wars prequel trilogy, starting with The Phantom Menace, and ending with 2005's Revenge Of The Sith.

Natalie Portman splayed Padme Amidala, who Anakin Skywalker was crushing on, in the Star Wars prequels from 1999 to 2005, but she struggled to get gigs afterwards.

Late filmmaker Mike Nichols worked with Portman on the stage play "The Seagull" at around the same time. The director, who died in November, tried to help out the young actress by recommending her to other directors.

"Star Wars had come out around the time of Seagull, and everyone thought I was a horrible actress... I was in the biggest-grossing movie of the decade, and no director wanted to work with me. Mike wrote a letter to Anthony Minghella and said, 'Put her in Cold Mountain, I vouch for her.' And then Anthony passed me on to Tom Tykwer, who passed me on to the Wachowskis," Portman told NY Magazine.

The Wachowski brothers cast her in their 2006 thriller "V for Vendetta."

"I worked with Milos Forman a few years later," she said. "He wrote a letter so that I could get asylum in the U.S.' He did that for 50 people, and it doesn't make any one of us feel less special." 

Portman was nominated for an Oscar for Nichols' 2005 film "Closer" and won the Best Actress Award in 2011 for her work in "Black Swan."

Natalie Portman, "Black Swan" star, is playing in the superhero film "Thor: The Dark World" as the scientist Jane Foster.