Jodie Foster: 'I don't need to be known by everyone'

David Marchese on why the Oscar winner is one of Hollywood's greatest enigmas

Jodie Foster: "It’s not that I’m not in touch with my feelings. It’s that I’m scared of what happens when I show them. For an actor, that’s crazy! What a cruel profession for somebody like me. I didn’t choose it. I was 3 years old. I got picked because I was willing." Pic: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

Despite growing up on film, which is to say in public, Jodie Foster has always been an enigma. 

As a child actor, she was capable of uncanny, how-could-she-know-that emotional acuity. As an adult, she was determined to play women, like Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs and Sarah Tobias in The Accused, who defied easy categorisation. (She won Academy Awards for both roles.) 

Foster’s refusal to conform to any obvious famous-actress template extended to her longstanding disinclination to tease glimpses of her offscreen world. That often led to her being labeled “notoriously private.” 

It might more accurately be described as a rational response to irrational circumstances. “Celebrity culture was a big culprit — I couldn’t stand what that was,” says Foster, who is 58, about why she’s less visible these days. “I really just wanted to work when I found it meaningful.” 

Case in point: The Mauritanian, which has its premiere April 2. The film, directed by Kevin Macdonald, tells the story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi, who was detained without charges at Guantánamo Bay for 14 years before being released in 2016. 

Foster plays Salahi’s dogged defense lawyer, Nancy Hollander. “You hope there’s some sense of recovery and understanding that comes out of dissecting these shameful moments in American history,” Foster says. “That’s what we as filmmakers can try to offer.” 

Jodie Foster, in younger years. Pic: Hulton Getty

Q: You started as a professional actor when you were a small child and then, for what amounts to a lifetime, you acted regularly. But you don’t do it much anymore. What has that meant for how you understand yourself?

A: I think about these things a lot. I grew up in the film business, and I thought making films was the most meaningful thing anyone could do. More than being a soldier. More than being a doctor. And the world around me kept confirming that. That confirmation was a little like a steroid where you keep taking more and you’re like, I like the way that looks. Then you make a decision to stop the steroids, and you don’t recognise who you’ve become. I made that change in my life, and it was hard because I didn’t know who I was. It turns out that there are other things that are as meaningful as making movies.

Q: What are those things for you?

A: I do things. I don’t talk about them, but I do things — much like how Daniel Day-Lewis makes shoes. I do not make shoes, but I do other stuff. I like to learn. I like school. I have a commitment to learning that has nothing to do with the movie business.

Q: Given your ambivalence about acting, what made you want to do The Mauritanian? 

A: It was a confluence of wonderful things. Kevin Macdonald is the perfect director. Somebody who has that raw documentary style and point of view but is also able to find the cinema in a subject. I also love Nancy Hollander. She was an amazing character. But most of all we’re here to tell Mohamedou’s story. With everything that he faced — torture, cruelty — he is a better person than he was when he got to Guantánamo. He’s more vulnerable and forgiving and humanistic. Instead of choosing the path of revenge or anger he was able to find spiritual growth. That’s amazing.

Q: What is it that makes one person go through a traumatic experience — which is something you know about — and come out of it emotionally crippled, and another person, like Mohamedou, come out stronger?

A: I’ve made about 25 movies that ask that same question. What do we do with the emotions and experiences that we have? Whom do we turn into? They’re interesting questions. I don’t have the answers.

Q: Nancy Hollander is another one of the hypercompetent professionals you’ve often played during the latter part of your career, all these people trying to project control. It occurred to me that maybe the last time you played a fundamentally vulnerable character was in “Nell” more than 25 years ago. Did that part change something in you?

A: That was a turning point for me, the most challenging role I had ever done. I didn’t know that I had the skills to do it. I tried to do research. The research didn’t work. Everything that you would normally do to prepare was useless. And that was great, because I realised that everything that I needed to know, I already knew. I didn’t realise that I had that in me. I had to open up and be vulnerable. Which to me was like, I’m not sure I know how to do that. I didn’t become an actor because I’m this vulnerable person who wants to feel all the time. I’m not that person, and I was scared. I recognise that that’s my failing as a human being.

Alexandra Hedison, left, and Jodie Foster pose at the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on Monday, Aug. 25, 2014, in Los Angeles. Pic: by Tonya Wise/Invision for the Television Academy/AP Images

Q: Why do you think of it as a failing?

A: My 18-year-old self would not see that as a failing, but my older self understood that it had to do with a sad part of my childhood. I didn’t feel comfortable expressing myself emotionally. I was wary and suspicious. There was an innocence that I couldn’t find in myself because of how I’d grown up. That was something that I had to overcome. I’m still working on it. I can convey it in a movie, but in my own life it’s hard.

Q: The thing that made your performances as a young actor so striking, particularly in Taxi Driver, was your understanding of the emotional dynamics of mature material at such a young age. Where’d that come from?

A: As a young actor I was operating instinctually, but I think I was preternaturally psychologically deep about who people are. Much like the boy in Little Man Tate. Some of that was growing up with a single mom in a house where there was drama and a lot of trying to figure out how to get from here to there. But psychological understanding was just something I was born with. I don’t know what it’s worth. It doesn’t help me much.

Q: It seems like a good skill to have.

A: Sometimes I’d rather I could play piano.

Q: The other thing is — 

A: I could talk more about this if you’re interested.

Jodie Foster poses with the Cecile B. DeMille Award for outstanding contribution to the entertainment field. "I am a solitary, internal person in an extroverted, external job. I don’t think I will ever not feel lonely. It’s a theme in my life. It’s not such a bad thing. I don’t need to be known by everyone."(Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Q: Please.

A: I was also naturally able to compartmentalise, to make decisions about when to feel and when not to feel. Some people call that a damaged spirit. Like, I’m so compartmentalised that I can decide when I give and when I hold back. But that was helpful in order to design performances; to be in the moment and outside the moment. It’s also a good skill for directing.

Q: What do you learn as a director when you act for other directors?

A: I learn something new every time. I learned from directors who do things that I would never do. David Fincher is an extraordinary filmmaker, and also crazy and obsessive — but it’s his attention to detail, his sense of technique. And Robert Zemeckis likes to create problems for himself that can’t be resolved on film. So he has to invent things in order to resolve them. That’s kind of amazing. Neil Jordan doesn’t plan what it’s going to feel like until he gets in the moment and all the pieces are in front of him. Then he comes up with things that can only happen in that moment. 

Or Spike Lee: He’s so impatient. He doesn’t want to do more than one or two takes, and he doesn’t want to go back to the beginning of a scene. So if you forget a line he’s like, “Just keep going.” That’s frustrating as an actor, because you want to get it perfect, but there’s a feeling that comes out of his work that you don’t get in anything else. Each director has something unusual about the way that they approach the job. It’s their psychology. I’m sure Spike has some history of impatience as a little boy. David Fincher’s obvious O.C.D. problems: It would be Take 85, I’d be standing behind him and he’d say, “Which one’s better?” And I’d say: “Honestly, you’re a very sick man. There is nothing different between those last three takes.” 

Q: What psychological insights could somebody draw from your approach to directing?

A: I can be too stubborn and controlling.

Q: Is it simplistic to suggest that might be an attempt to compensate for feeling like you lacked control over your life when you were younger?

A: I don’t know, but maybe.

Q: I get that you may have been intentionally vague earlier but — 

A: Probably! [Laughs.] I’ve been accused of that many times.

Q: But earlier when you said “because of how I’d grown up,” are you talking about growing up as an actor? Growing up and realising you were queer, which especially as a Hollywood star couldn’t have been easy at the time? Are you talking about the trauma you went through?

A: It’s any number of things, and yeah, I’m going to be intentionally vague. But it definitely is about growing up as the child of a single parent, who supported the entire family, who couldn’t make any mistakes, who was in the public eye from the time she was 3. But isn’t it a human thing? That we are scared to show our shameful secrets because we don’t want to be found out? 

It’s not that I’m not in touch with my feelings. It’s that I’m scared of what happens when I show them. For an actor, that’s crazy! What a cruel profession for somebody like me. 

I didn’t choose it. I was 3 years old. I got picked because I was willing. A lot of people are made to be an actor on a cellular level. They can’t wait to cry their eyes out in front of everyone. That’s not me. But acting has made me a better person than I would have been otherwise. Because if I didn’t explore things that were scary, I was going to give a bad performance, and I wasn’t willing to give a bad performance. So I had to be like, I have to go there emotionally. Had I been a lawyer or a C.P.A., I could have gone through life without being in touch with all this stuff.

Q: Is being in touch with these issues equivalent to solving them?

A: No. It’s bringing to the light — and then you’re probably going to make a movie about it. I make all my movies about pretty much the same thing. It’s ultimately death and being alone. It’s existentialism. The meaning of life. All of those big things that would seem obnoxious if I went on about them. And a lot of my characters go through this: There’s an inciting event in your life that shows you who you are and who you have always been, and it’s equally thrilling and repulsive to realise that and that you are entirely alone.

Jodie Foster (right) and Kristen Stewart in the Columbia Pictures thriller, Panic Room. PA feature: FILM Foster. PA Photo/Columbia Tri-star

Q: You’ve been in the entertainment business for more than 50 years. What’s your perspective on the way that moral issues are driving discussions about change in Hollywood? I ask because in the past you’ve been a part of films, like The Silence of the Lambs, that generated discussions about morality, so I’m wondering if you see these contemporary conversations as being all that new.

A: These new conversations are about a culture growing up. The issues surrounding Silence of the Lambs for example: Those protests were helpful because they led to conversations being had for the first time. Look how much we’ve grown in terms of trans visibility and understanding. There wasn’t any trans visibility back then. That’s partly the problem that people had with the character of Buffalo Bill. They were looking for the one positive representation of a trans character — and he was not a trans character. He was a psychopath who wanted to change because he hated who he was. So yeah, these conversations are important, and I welcome them. I grow from them.

Q: What about when the moral criticisms extend to those who’ve made the films rather than the films themselves? I’m thinking of people like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. Mel Gibson, too. Is there also value to be had in those conversations? Do you see that as a different thing?

A: I do see it as different, but they’re valuable conversations to have. This is all a process of figuring out how to do the right thing. I do think that you can look at Polanski’s movies and Woody Allen’s movies and be in awe of the talent. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the people who made them don’t face consequences. 

Let me say: I did a Woody Allen movie 30 years ago. I was in all of maybe three and a half minutes of the movie. So I don’t have a lot of thoughts about him. Polanski, yeah, that’s a choice I wish I could revisit. 

I think — and you would probably agree — that if somebody does a crime and they do their time then they deserve to be able to work. If somebody is following the law, regardless of what they may have done in the past, if they have followed the process of redemption, then that has to be taken into consideration. I’m not sure that applies to Polanski. But that’s all I have to say about that subject.

Q: Are there artistic downsides to increased moral scrutiny? You tried to make a Leni Riefenstahl film for a while. I feel as if no one would even take a meeting with you about that nowadays.

A: If it was David Fincher, they probably would take the meeting. Look, how we challenge ourselves to be better people is by looking at challenging stories and using them to teach. Leni Riefenstahl has a lot to teach us: somebody who was prodigiously talented and yet, as a woman, wasn’t going to be given any opportunities — in the 1930s in Germany she was supported and believed in by a despotic leader and she chose her career over the right thing and elevated that person. Ours is a perfect moment to ask, “Is an artist responsible when they do their job well?” But we’re always coming up against the challenges of a risk-averse industry. Narrowing your risk sometimes means, “Let’s not have any women directors, because they’re too risky.” I’m not quite sure why they’re risky.

Q: Why do you think they weren’t given opportunities?

A: I don’t think it was conscious. I remember so many years of being on a movie set where there was a makeup person, sometimes the script supervisor, but other than that there was never another woman unless she was playing my mom. Then things started shifting. The men woke up and realised, I’ve been living without seeing half the planet. I’ve seen that moment of male executives going: “Oh [expletive]! Women! We forgot!” Is some of that sexism? Yes. Do we have internalised sexism? Yes. I even have it. We need to acknowledge it and start taking steps to repair it. That seems to be happening. Is it happening as fast as it should? Is it happening as generously? I don’t know, but it’s definitely happening.

Jodie Foster in 'The Mauritanian'.

Q: Do you have an example of a moment when a male executive realised how he’d been thinking about women?

A: I’ve been in the meeting where you’re with the studio executives, and they’re talking about your movie, the female executive made a comment that was interesting, then the male executive cut her off, took her idea, and pretended it was his. All the guys are talking, and it’s like, microaggression, microaggression, microaggression, microaggression. Then at some point somebody says, “I don’t understand why we have to care about whoever the actress is in the movie?” or “I don’t need to know what happens to her character?” Maybe I turned around and went, “Actually, that’s a problem.” “Why is it a problem, Jodie?” “Because you took the most important character in the movie, who happens to be a woman, and said that she didn’t matter, and the reason is that since she’s a woman, you don’t care about her story.” And they’re like, “Really?” You see the wheels turn. You see people learn.

Q: You know, I just rewatched the speech you gave when you got your Golden Globes Lifetime Achievement award. It was so personal, which was out of your public character. Why did you decide to use that platform in that way?

A: Yeah, I don’t want to relitigate it. I have my reasons. When somebody asks me about that, I’m like: “Why don’t you go on the internet, pull the speech up and then read it like it’s written on a page? Then we can talk about what it is that I said and what I meant, and I’m sure it will make sense to you.” 

Q: I’d wanted to ask about the end of that speech. I’ll just read what you said: “I want to be seen, to be understood deeply and to be not so very lonely.” Are you lonely still?

A: I am a solitary, internal person in an extroverted, external job. I don’t think I will ever not feel lonely. It’s a theme in my life. It’s not such a bad thing. I don’t need to be known by everyone.

• This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity from two conversations. The article first appeared in The New York Times.