The raid on French nightclub the Bataclan and the shock wave of sick bombings that rocked Paris last November took place a week before the actress started shooting "Jackie," in which she plays the shattered wife of assassinated US President John F. Kennedy, reported Contactmusic.
Portman said her preparation revolved around her own personal loss - but nothing came close to what the former First Lady went through after her husband was shot and killed in 1963. And then Paris was attacked.
"But the terrorist attacks in Paris... The attacks in Bataclan happened about a week before we started shooting. We filmed the interiors in a studio just outside Paris and that was the area where the terrorists had come from.
"We were going to work and it was under lockdown with police everywhere. It's obviously a very different event but you felt the terror and the fear when something happens like that, that has a collective tragedy and a collective mourning. People get scared.