There’s an odd little moment in The Social Network where Harvard litigant Divya Narendra pouts that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had become “the biggest thing on a campus that included nineteen Nobel Laureates, fifteen Pulitzer Prize winners, two future Olympians, and a movie star,” and though it’s obvious that his last reference is to then-Harvard student Natalie Portman, the line sparks a weird exchange where a curious lawyer tries to find out who the movie star is, and the haughty Narendra answers, “Does it matter?” Now, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has explained the ostentatiously veiled hat tip, sort of: “Natalie Portman got in touch with me when she heard that I was [writing the film] to say, ‘Listen come over for dinner and I’ll tell you some stories [about Harvard].’ I would’ve come over for dinner under any circumstances. But that was really helpful.” [PopWatch/EW]
