Natalie Portman goes for professional training

London: Hollywood actress Natalie Portman trained for a year to perfect her posture and dance moves for her role as a troubled ballerina in her upcoming film `Black Swan`.

The `Star Wars` beauty was determined to pull off the tricky ballet steps herself to play Nina Sayers in the Darren Aronofsky film and spent up to eight hours a day to achieve the physique needed to make her portrayal realistic, Contactmusic reported. "So many of the emotional scenes happen while she`s dancing that there was no real way of getting around it. I do have a double for the complicated turning stuff. But anything I could do myself saved the budget hundreds of thousands of dollars in special effects," said the 29-year-old actress. However, Portman managed to remain disciplined while shooting her upcoming fantasy comedy `Your Highness` with James Franco and Danny MCBride in Ireland. "(They) were out having fun every night, and I was the little good girl; no drinking, waking up at five to do my workouts, and not eating. I was the really unfun one," she added. PTI