The Future of the Industry?

In his assessment of Natalie Portman's career trajectory, Nathan Heller uncorks this:

Since appearing on-screen for the first time in the '90s, Portman has been a quiet enigma in the world of her profession. Now she's coming to resemble something more: a window onto the industry's future.

and

In an industry that rests in large part on the strength of public image, it remains unclear whether Portman is a daughter of the red carpet, striking a pose of highbrow devotion, or a cerebral small-film artist who got dragged into the blockbuster machine.

He continues to trace her uniqueness with:

At Harvard, Portman had the kind of college career more closely associated with a bet-hedging striver than a movie star in the first flush of fame. She worked as a research assistant in a couple of laboratory studies, one on visual imagery and another on frontal-lobe activation in infants. She held a spot in Jorie Graham's application-only poetry workshop, one of Harvard's most coveted and creatively rigorous courses.

...

Was this a movie star going through the motions of engaged academic life to seal her reputation—or a student of creative and intellectual ambition, shielding her passions behind the glaze of a celebrity career? The answer might have gotten clearer as Portman's mature career took shape. Instead, it has grown more opaque.

Portman got herself accepted to Harvard, then excelled academically in order to 'go through the motions of engaged academic life'? Why would a student, or a movie star who wishes to complete her education, need to shield her enthusiasm (to learn stuff)?

Heller whips up quite a flurry here:

...she is a public figure shaped by goals so disparate as to be almost irreconcilable.

You can't be a (very well) educated movie star? Being highly educated and a star of both indie flicks and major motion pictures is irreconcilable?

The more carefully I read Heller's piece the more it eludes me. I'm not sure it's all that complex, and have to admit I'm not sure how Portman's career path is a 'window into the industry's future', but...it's a nice write up, loaded with complex and important sounding sentences. Well, that's okay. Heller seems sure of what he's saying.