Natalie Portman jokes she’s ‘definitely a soccer mom’ to ‘ferocious’ player son Aleph, 12

She helped found the up-and-coming Los Angeles women’s soccer team Angel City Football Club.

And Natalie Portman joked that she officially became a “football mom” after her son Aleph, 12, took up the sport.

The 41-year-old actress chatted about how her son had turned into a ‘fierce footballer’ People on Thursday night at the premiere of her three-part HBO docuseries Angel City, which charts the first year of the women’s soccer club she co-founded with other celebrity soccer fans.

“I mean, we’re definitely coming to a lot of the City Games,” she said at the premiere. “On top of that, my son is a ferocious football player, so I go back and forth to practice.”

“I’m definitely a soccer mom,” she said of her new routine.

Portman co-founded Angel City FC in 2020 with Eva Longoria, Serena Williams and football legend Mia Hamm.

The soccer club filled a niche as Los Angeles’ first professional women’s soccer team since the Los Angeles Sol ceased operations a decade earlier.

According to her, Aleph, who she shares with husband Benjamin Millepied, 45, was inspired by Angel City and the recent struggle of female soccer players to earn equal pay from their male peers.

“I was so inspired by the women at the Women’s World Cup, the last one, fighting for equal pay alongside their incredible game,” she explained. “And I saw my son look up to the female athletes the same way he looked up to his male heroes, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is really a culture shift.'”

At the premiere, Portman said ET that she had considered holding a ‘friendly’ match between Angel City and Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s team Wrexham AFC Women.

“I’ve been lucky enough to talk to him about his journey, and he’s so inspiring for what he’s done with Wrexham, and they also have a women’s team,” she said of Reynolds. “So we’ve talked about having some friendlies at some point.”

She also discussed her struggles to get backers to get Angel City FC off the ground.

“It was incredible to get the support of all those friends and it was really moving when people came on board because it wasn’t clear, and we got a lot of nos before we got yeses,” she shared. “And I feel like I didn’t realize what a big lift it was, and that would have put me off doing it if I understood how hard it was going to be.”

Family: Portman shares Aleph and her daughter Amalia, six, with French choreographer husband Benjamin Millepied; seen in February 2022

Sports director: Portman founded Angel City in 2020 with Mia Hamm, Eva Longoria and Serena Williams; seen in the docuseries with husband Benjamin

Famous football game: She told ET at the premiere that she is considering setting up a friendly with Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s team Wrexham AFC Women

She described it as “ignorance or optimism” that kept her going in the early stages of trying to set up the team.

“I so believed in it. I believed in it because these players are the best players in the world, and it’s the most popular sport in the world, and I thought, ‘There’s no way you can’t provide better accessibility, and this isn’t the biggest hit,'” she said.

In addition to her footballer son Aleph, Portman also shares her six-year-old daughter Amalia, six, with Millepied.

She and the French choreographer began dating in 2009, and they married in 2012 in Big Sur, California.