Jodie Foster

Interview By: Ray Dademo
RayDademo@TheCinemaSource.com

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In an age where Jude Law opens six movies in one year, Jodie Foster seems like something of an oddity. Over the last ten years, Foster, a two-time Academy Award winning actress, has made herself (noticeably) scarce from the Hollywood scene. Of course, she’s taken on larger “behind-the-scenes” projects: opening a production company (Egg Pictures) and directing a few personal projects (Little Man Tate and Home For the Holidays) Still, for an actress widely recognized as one of her generation’s best, it’s sometimes difficult to imagine any reason for Foster’s prolonged absence.

She has two reasons. One is seven years old; the other, four.

“When I was younger,” Foster confesses. “I thought you had to be completely consumed
with the world of the film and you had to completely divorce yourself from your
own life. As you get older, you realize how important it is to have a full life.
If I had to shoot this film on location, away from my kids, I probably would have
lost my mind.”

It was the birth of Foster’s children (Charles and Kip) that presented her with an interesting choice. She felt she could have been a committed mother or a committed actress — but not both. “You have different times in your life as an actor. I like not feeling
like I have to compete like in did in my twenties.”

Normally, it is a rare project that separates Foster from her children. With Flightplan,” she found a shooting schedule that fit her maternal needs. “It’s always very hard for me to have them [my kids] on the set. I’m always worried and I can’t really focus my work, so they don’t get to visit the set that much. But the good news
was that they go to school about six minutes from where we shot the film. So, I
could have a real life with them. I didn’t have to lose my life to shoot the film.”

In Flightplan,” Foster plays Kyle Pratt, an important passanger whose daughter disappears on a commercial airliner, mid-flight. Though the tight construct of the thriller appealed to Foster, it was a deep empathy for Kyle that immediately

drew her to the project. “I never know what’s going to move me. I’m always surprised. And it’s always a mystery to people who work with me. [In this case,] it was the character, what she goes through. I suppose it’s some kind of unconscious fear I have. Not so much losing your child, but worse than that not being able to keep them safe. So much of that is a fear
of being a child who wasn’t able to be kept safe. I must be drawn to that. Panic
Room has a similar issue.”

The theme of parent-child relationships has saturated Foster’s work in the last few years, and she is not averse to considering the therapeutic power of her films. “You exercise a certain fear you have. It’s like you have a place for all those fears you have for them. So when you come home, you don’t have to worry about them so much. I’m not that neurotic. I worry because I’m a worrier. I’m an organizer. If there’s something I’ve learned from my first son, it’s that I tend to do too much for him. As time goes on, you have to undo all that — teach them to tie their own shoes.”

Foster’s time away from the silver screen has afforded her the perspective of an observer. While she declares herself a fan of Hustle and Flow and Crash, there is little else that has aroused her attention. The former child star has entered her forties
with signature grace and is anything but bitter about it. “Things do slow down when you’re a little older because most movies are for people 20-35, so I think that’s normal, natural. Also when you’ve been doing it long enough, there’s some things you’ve already done, things you’ve already played, so you don’t need to go down that territory again.”

It is precisely this “been there, done that” attitude that places Jodie Foster in a class
of her own. “I don’t have a typical actor’s personality. Which is a blessing in
some ways and a real hindrance in others. I wasn’t born with that gift of loving
to perform, and standing on a table and doing impressions, and loving applause.”

Though it’s been a while since her

days on The Partridge Family, Foster has learned a thing or two. She still identifies with child performers, but does not claim to
understand the pressure placed upon them. “It is a different era. I don’t know
anymore. Teen and twenty something actors have it much worse than I had it. It seems
to me that they are not allowed to have any adolescent life without media scrutiny. They carry films now.”

Foster pauses, and with a thoughtful intake of breath, delivers what may as well be the
perfect summation of her career… “It’s completely different now.”