Natalie Portman “nearly died” after losing so much weight for her role as Nina, a disturbed dancer in Black Swan.

Portman, who graces the cover of this week’s Entertainment Weekly, talks about her year of preparation and grueling filming of the psycho-drama-thriller, for which she trained for a year and became almost skeleton-like.

She told Entertainment Weekly, “There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die.”

“It was the first time I understood how you could get so wrapped up in a role that it could sort of take you down,” Portman continued.

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“All dancers are always dancing with an extreme injury,” the actress, who dislocated a rib during rehearsals, remarked recently. “Not just a sore muscle, they’re dancing on a sprained ankle or with a twisted neck or something.”

“You’ll see them do incredible stuff and then limp off stage, straight to a bucket of ice. Part of the art is hiding all the pain.”

Portman admitted that she was concerned about the film’s box office performance.

“Everyone was so worried about who was going to want to see this movie,” Portman explains. “I remember them being like, ‘How do you get guys to a ballet movie? How do you get girls to a thriller?’ And the answer is a lesbian scene. Everyone wants to see that.”

Ballerinas have given the film mixed reviews ahead of its release in the United Kingdom this month. Ms Portman’s role, according to Racheal Prince of Ballet British Columbia, was over dramatized. “She’s anorexic, bulimic, crazy,” the dancer, who is 26 years old, stated. “I’m sure every dancer struggles with little things here and there, but for one girl to struggle with every single problem out there, it just makes us look crazy.”

Gillian Murphy, a prominent dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, slammed the film for portraying the ballet world in a “shocking and disturbing” way.

Nevertheless, the film brought the actress double joy: she announced earlier this week that she is engaged to and expecting a child with choreographer fiance Benjamin Millepied, whom she met while shooting on the movie.