Natalie Portman hearts Sean Penn ... and which celebrity has been driven "mental" by Prop 8?

At only twenty-seven, Natalie Portman has already had a hell of a showbiz career. From her scene stealing as a young teenager in The Professional and Beautiful Girls to her Oscar-nominated performance in Closer, she's proven to be a class act. And she's proven that she's a survivor, too, emerging unscathed from three of those turgid space movies and Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

She recently paid tribute in Variety to Sean Penn and effuses praise for his performance in Milk. Join us after the break for her love letter, and find out which gay ally is really pissed about Prop 8!

Natalie on Sean:

"They only need to know one of us," Harvey Milk explains to his campaign team in the film Milk. Sean Penn's performance as Harvey does exactly that: You learn one man's story, and his pains and triumphs become your own. It showed me how a great performance can also be a humanitarian act. When we know one character, one story, we recognize him as being of our own flesh and blood. When we understand his feelings, we put ourselves in his position.

Not only is Sean's performance honestly and lovingly humane, but it is also virtuosic -- every note is so subtly tuned that the work behind it is never visible. He infuses Harvey's courage with cowardice and his sexual prowess with hesitation. Sean's Harvey is a cocky and charismatic orator, but always weighted by the foreboding dread of knowing his own tragedy.

When the antigay Prop. 6 is unexpectedly voted down, surprise, elation and horror at the very existence of the referendum all rage in the blood beneath his skin.

Sean Penn so inhabits Harvey Milk that I left the theater feeling the need to march against our frighteningly similar Prop. 8 to honor this man I now know.

Classy, talented, and wise beyond her years. We heart Natalie.

In other celebrity support news, Rolling Stone interviewed Brad Pitt and his Chia lip, and he discussed his religious upbringing, and how it affects his life now:

"I just found it so stifling, my religion. I know it's very comforting for other people. And it was too much of what you shouldn't be doing instead of what you could be doing. I get enraged when people start telling other people how to live their lives. It drives me mental. This Prop. 8 thing just drives me mental."

Despite the disturbing channeling of Ed Grimley with those statements, we do appreciate the support, Brad.