SAG Awards: Natalie Portman endures some awkward moments backstage

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Backstage after accepting her SAG Award for actress in a leading role for ‘Black Swan,’ Natalie Portman faced a throng of especially vocal photographers in the photo pool room. She remained composed, steely even. One by one they yelled out to her.

‘Natalie! Mazel tov!’ said one photographer.

‘Golden Globes! SAG! Way to go!’ said another, referring to her Golden Globes win two weeks ago.

‘Natalie, go out with me!’ yelled another, sticking out his tongue -- a bit odd, considering she recently announced her engagement to her ‘Black Swan’ choreographer Benjamin Millepied and is pregnant.

‘Hopefully the baby can’t hear any of this!’ she said to an assistant, apparently forgetting she had just used an expletive during her acceptance speech.

As she attempted to make her getaway, she was cornered by a TV crew from Extra, who seemingly were trying to engage in some product placement for T-Mobile phones. [For the record: An earlier version of this post said they were Apple iPhones.]

First they asked Portman if her fiancee was nearby. When she answered in the negative, the talking head waved a phone at her, and asked, ‘Do you want to call him? We have phones here!’

Portman giggled uncomfortably, and then a woman from Extra whipped out a cellphone and proceeded to pull up old pictures of Portman as a kid.

‘What’s this one? I’ve never seen you look like this,’ the woman said.

‘Yeah, I think that’s from high school,’ said Portman politely, but obviously eager to get away.

-- Deborah Vankin and Jessica Gelt