Natalie Portman discovered a great admiration for Jackie Kennedy

Natalie Portman revealed to PEOPLE at the Hollywood premiere of the film Jackie that she discovered a great admiration for Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy after portraying her as she searches for the inner strength to move on after her husband's assassination. “I loved that she defined herself as a wife primarily, but then lived a life that was very counter to that, where she was her own woman so strongly...[and] the understanding she had that even when she was going through something incredibly private, it meant something to other people how she presented herself publicly. The increasingly acclaimed film Jackie opens on Dec. 2.