Natalie talks about feeling like an outsider at school where the girls had "flat ironed hair and Prada bags" and they spoke with an accent she mimicked to fit after she moved to Long Island from Connecticut.

She faced more of the same at Harvard where her desire to be taken seriously led her to choose obscure subjects to study - among them neurobiology and advanced modern Hebrew literature.

She also touches on the very dark times she had at college: "A combination of being 19, dealing with my first heartbreak, taking birth control pills that have since been taken off the market for their depressive side effects and too much time missing daylight during the winter months led to some pretty dark times here during my sophomore year," she admits. But finding her way back to film, and realising which jobs she was and wasn't willing to take on, helped her find her true self again she says.

"When I got to my graduation, after four years of trying to get excited about something else, I admitted to myself that I couldn't wait to go back and make more films," Natalie told the students. "I wanted to tell stories, imagine the lives of others, and help others to do the same.

"Fear protects us in many ways, but what has served me is diving into my own obliviousness," Natalie says. "Being more confident than I should be ... trying things that you never would have tried. Your inexperience is an asset in that it will make you think in original, unconventional ways. Accept your lack of knowledge and use it as your asset."

Natalie Portman talks insecurities, feeling like a fraud and heartbreak in Harvard speech