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.)