After dabbling into the directing world with a segment in New York, I Love You and the short Eve, Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman is moving onto bigger (and more vegan-friendly) things. After doing an interview with the French site Chap, author Jonathan Safran Foer confirmed last summer that the actress has been planning a documentary based on his non-fiction novel, Eating Animals. [ThePlaylist]

Foer commented on the subject, saying, “[Portman] wants to make a very personal documentary. She contacted me, she told me that she loved the book. I know her now, I will help her eventually, but it will be her vision. She’s only at the very beginning.”

Eating Animals is a memoir centering on Foer‘s journey to discover everything about the food we ingest on a daily basis. Not only did he explore factory farming and commercial fisheries, but he also investigated various health risks associated with American factory farming. As of right now, we’re not really sure if Portman will do a straight adaptation of the novel, but, judging by his comment on her intentions, that will ultimately revolve around Portman‘s directing.

We’ve seen Foer‘s work make it to the big screen in the past with Liev Schreiber‘s adaptation of his 2002 novel Everything is Illuminated, and the very recent adaptation of his sophomore novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close — which has been playing in limited release for almost two weeks, and will go wide on January 20th.

Although Portman is currently tending to her motherly ways, as well as the upcoming Thor sequel, she does seem passionate about adapting this novel — she even credits it as the reason why she became a vegan in the first place. We’ve seen food production documentaries and features like this thrive in the past, but none of them were too great. With some luck, Eating Animals could end up doing what a Food Inc. or Fast Food Nation tried years ago.

What do you think about Portman directing Eating Animals?