Natalie Portman has suggested she and Ryan Reynolds might be interested in teaming up together for a future project – but not one intended for the silver screen. Instead, the 41-year-old actress was talking to ET about the possibility of her and Ryan's soccer teams holding a friendly match sometime soon.
The Star Wars star made the comments at the premiere for her latest onscreen outing, a HBO docuseries named Angel City which chronicles the formation of the Los Angeles professional women's soccer team Angel City Football Club which she and other stars including Eva Longoria and Serena Williams helped set up.
Speaking with the entertainment website on Thursday, Natalie said: "[Ryan and I] have talked about kind of having some friendly matches at some point." The star then explained that were these to occur, they would be between the Deadpool star's Wrexham Women's F.C. and Angel City.
The Black Swan actress was obviously very inspired by Ryan and his friend Rob McElhenny's story building up the strength of the Welsh squad. "I've been lucky enough to talk to him about his journey, and he's so inspirational for what he's done with Wrexham," Natalie said.
Ryan and Rob bought Wrexham's soccer club in 2020, hoping to help the team – which is the oldest football club in Wales – see some success after being stuck in the same low position in the English Football Leagues for over a decade. In April 2023, their dreams came true when Wrexham's men's team successfully earned themselves a promotion from the National League to League 2, a journey which was followed by much celebration.
With Natalie and Ryan both a part of the Marvel universe of superheroes, it wouldn't be impossible to see them both team up for an acting project sometime soon. But for now, excitement lies in the possibility their teams may be squaring off on the pitch.
Speaking about her own journey with the Angel City women, the Oscar-winning actress gushed: "It was incredible to get the support from [friends] and it was really moving when people came on board, because it wasn't obvious, and we got a lot of nos before we got a yes… I feel like I didn't realize what a big lift it was, and that might have stopped me from doing it if I understood how hard it was going to be."
Natalie then admitted: "I feel lucky that I had that kind of ignorance or optimism that, of course, this will all work out. I believed in it so much. I believed in it because these players are the best players in the world, and it's the most popular sport in the world and I thought, 'there's no way that you don't provide greater accessibility, and this isn't the biggest hit.'"
SEE: 6 iconic Natalie Portman hairstyles to inspire your next trip to the salon
The two-time Golden Globe-winning star later revealed the exciting news that the Angel City women's success story has inspired further women's soccer teams to be set up in other cities across the US. "That's been the most exciting thing," she told ET. "We're seeing it already… not replicated but taking kind of certain aspects of our model and then adapting it to their own cities."
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