Jodie Foster

Summary

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Fresh Air: Jodie Foster

Host: Terry Gross
Guest: Jodie Foster
Date: January 13, 2026
Episode Theme:
An intimate, career-spanning conversation with Jodie Foster, touching on her childhood as an actor, her iconic roles ("Taxi Driver," "The Silence of the Lambs"), the psychological cost and resilience of early fame, her latest French-language film "A Private Life," Hollywood then and now, feminism, MeToo, and personal privacy.

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Episode Overview

Terry Gross welcomes Jodie Foster for an in-depth retrospective of Foster's extraordinary five-decade career. The conversation explores Foster’s origins as a child actor, her family dynamics, famous childhood roles, and how early critical acclaim shaped her sense of self and career. Foster unpacks her survival and resilience in Hollywood, dives into the making and legacy of "Taxi Driver" on its 50th anniversary, addresses gender and power in the industry, discusses the MeToo movement, and reflects on her fierce commitment to privacy amidst public scrutiny. The episode is candid, warm, humorous, and deeply insightful—a revealing portrait of one of cinema’s most enduring talents.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jodie Foster’s Early Life and Entry into Acting

[00:00–05:00]

• French Language Upbringing:
  • Foster’s mother fell in love with France after a late-in-life trip, enrolling 9-year-old Jodie in an immersive French school (Lycée Français in Los Angeles).
    • "I cried for about six months and then I spoke fluently and got over it." (Jodie Foster, 01:52)
• Quirky Child Actor Stories:
  • Reminisces about her iconic Coppertone and Crest commercials, discussing the odd scripts and acting style of the era.
    • "I remember thinking, oh, well, this is not a job I'm gonna do when I'm a grownup. Because this seems like a very silly job." (Jodie Foster, 08:01)
• Acting as Family and Community:
  • Acting appealed to her more for the camaraderie on set than the performance itself.
  • Her mother was supportive but complex, saying, "You can quit anytime," but Foster felt quitting wasn't a real option.

Notable Moment:

• When reflecting on being a child breadwinner, she shares the nuanced pressure and her mother’s attempts to redistribute the load among siblings:
  • "She kind of sold it differently... ‘we all participate, we’re all doing a job.’" (Jodie Foster, 10:31)

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2. Resilience, Trauma, and Navigating Hollywood as a Child

[11:14–16:49]

• Survival and Psychological Impact:
  • Foster describes the two routes for child actors: resilience or breakdown, and credits her survival to her innate constitution and supportive familial structure.
  • Lion Attack Story:
    • At age 9, she was picked up and shaken by a lion on a Disney set.
    • "He picked me up by the hip and shook me like this... And I watched the entire film crew run in the opposite direction." (Jodie Foster, 13:45)
    • Demonstrates her lifelong resilience and detachment from trauma.
• Long-term Effects:
  • Acknowledges that resilience as a survival skill also has psychological consequences with age.

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3. Mother's Role, Feminism, and Complicated Messages

[16:49–19:34]

• Mother's Influence:
  • Foster’s mother helped her choose roles that had meaning, sometimes vicariously living through Foster’s achievements.
  • Her mother encouraged feminist ideals but also communicated contradictory advice prevalent in that era:
    • "You can do anything, but you won’t be able to take care of yourself. So who are you going to marry that’s going to take care of you?" (Jodie Foster, 18:15)
  • Foster rebelled against the fear-based guidance to forge her own path.

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4. On "A Private Life," Psychoanalysis, and Hypnosis

[01:36–04:54]

• About the Film:
  • Foster stars as Lilian Steiner, an American Freudian psychoanalyst in Paris who is skeptical of hypnosis but driven to unravel a patient’s mysterious death.
  • Discusses differences between Freudian psychoanalysis and hypnosis—both professionally and as story themes.
• Personal Experience with Hypnosis:
  • Foster quit smoking after a "not very impressive" hypnosis session, paralleling plot elements of the film.
    • "I left thinking, well, this is dumb... And then I just never smoked again." (Jodie Foster, 02:30)

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5. "Taxi Driver" at 50: Art, Controversy & Coming of Age

[20:15–32:23]

• Casting and Mother’s Judgment:
  • Foster’s mother saw the opportunity in "Taxi Driver" as both controversial and brilliant—a chance to contribute to art and female representation.
  • Foster recounts how seeing auteur cinema with her mother cultivated her ambition and skill as an actor even before "Taxi Driver."
• Filming Memories:
  • Robert De Niro’s method acting and improvisational rehearsals were transformative.
    • "He really took the time to show me what acting was—that it wasn't just saying lines that somebody else wrote." (Jodie Foster, 23:22)
    • "It was just this huge eureka moment. I'll never forget it." (Jodie Foster, 27:11)
• On Playing a Child Sex Worker:
  • Her mother’s protection and emphasis on art, plus the contrast in her own innocence and role, helped define the approach.
  • Notably, Scorsese cast her for that very ambiguity:
    • "He liked the ambiguity... seeing somebody who's a child, in some ways sexualized as a woman but isn't a victim." (Jodie Foster, 30:02)
• Handling Hard Scenes:
  • Foster describes coaching De Niro through the delicate scenes involving physical intimacy, noting the lack of "intimacy coordinators" in that era, a contrast to her work on “True Detective.”
    • "Where have you intimacy coordinators been my whole life?" (Jodie Foster, 31:48)
• Psychological Evaluation:
  • Due to the nature of her role, she underwent a psychological evaluation to prove she distinguished acting from reality.

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6. Gender, Power, and the MeToo Era

[32:23–38:31]

• Reflections on MeToo:
  • Foster never directly experienced the worst abuses and credits a combination of early power/acclaim, her "head-first" rather than emotionally-vulnerable personality, and strong parental protection.
    • "By the time I had my first Oscar nomination, I was part of a different category of people that had power and I was too dangerous to touch." (Jodie Foster, 32:35)
• Roles and Personality Reinforcing Each Other:
  • Foster notes playing powerful, outspoken young women may have reinforced her personal boundaries and strength.
    • "I was empowered by the people I played in some ways. And I also was born a powerful person." (Jodie Foster, 35:04)
• Memorable Assertive Moment:
  • She recounts confronting a powerful, misbehaving male actor on set, verbally standing her ground; details her refusal to emotionally react under duress, relying on logic and calm to defuse situations.
    • "I don't know where it came from, but I went on this super, you know, articulate rant... At the end... he said, okay, I'll meet you downstairs." (Jodie Foster, 36:10)
    • "I say things like, wow, I'm sorry you feel that way. I respond with my head when somebody comes at me..." (Jodie Foster, 38:05)

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7. Privacy in the Spotlight: Coming Out and Personal Boundaries

[39:08–42:54]

• Golden Globes Lifetime Achievement Speech [39:10]:
  • Foster’s speech eschewed a traditional public coming-out, valuing privacy over spectacle.
    • "If you had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe, maybe then you too might value privacy above all else." (Jodie Foster, 40:19)
• Choosing Privacy Over Activism:
  • Foster acknowledges her era was different; direct advocacy was dangerous. She honors queer pioneers but sees her own role as creating substantial, varied roles for women and maintaining her wholeness while contributing to the art.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

1. On Resilience vs. Collapse for Child Actors:

"There are real advantages to that in life. And I really feel grateful for the advantages that that's given me, the benefits that that's given me. Or the other is you totally fall apart and you can't take it..."
— Jodie Foster (11:16)

2. On Being Mauled by a Lion:

"He picked me up by the hip and shook me like this... And I watched the entire film crew run in the opposite direction."
— Jodie Foster (13:45)

3. On Privacy and Coming Out:

"If you had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe, maybe then you too might value privacy above all else."
— Jodie Foster (40:19)

4. On Power, Personality, and Avoiding Abuse in Hollywood:

"By the time I had my first Oscar nomination, I was part of a different category of people that had power and I was too dangerous to touch... It's very difficult to emotionally manipulate me because I don't operate with my emotions on the surface."
— Jodie Foster (32:35)

5. On How Acting Taught Her to Express Emotion:

"Thank God I was acting. So it gave me an outlet that I would not have had. I had to develop... I had to learn emotions and I had to learn not only how to access them, but also how to control them so that I could give them intention."
— Jodie Foster (25:25)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:00–05:00] – French immersion school; early commercials; onset camaraderie
• [11:14–16:49] – Effects of child acting; lion attack story and resilience
• [16:49–19:34] – Mother’s complex feminism; family choices; conflicting generational messages
• [20:15–22:56] – Reflection on "Taxi Driver": legacy, script, and casting
• [23:22–27:11] – Method acting with De Niro: transformative lessons, improvisation
• [28:33–29:35] – Psychological evaluation for "Taxi Driver"
• [32:23–38:31] – MeToo, power in Hollywood, assertive confrontations
• [39:08–41:03] – Golden Globe speech and privacy; coming out on her own terms

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Tone & Highlights

• The interview is frequently humorous (Foster’s stories of bad commercials, childhood logic, deadpanning scares), highly self-aware, and characterized by Foster’s unpretentious candor.
• Foster is reflective, occasionally wry, and always sharply intelligent as she discusses both the art and realities of her decades-long career.
• Gross serves as a perceptive, admiring, and gently probing interviewer, facilitating space for Foster’s insights and storytelling without sensationalism.

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Summary

This episode offers a fascinating, unguarded conversation with Jodie Foster that traverses personal history, psychological insight, cinematic milestones, and the complexity of public life. Foster shares the deep impact of her mother, the challenge and strength required to survive and evolve through early fame, and how those experiences shaped her identity and career. The episode also provides a rare, behind-the-scenes account of "Taxi Driver" and Foster’s enduring commitment to authenticity—in her art and her life. It’s a must-listen for film aficionados, creatives, and anyone interested in the intersection of childhood, stardom, feminism, and selfhood.

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Transcript

[Terry Gross]

Terry this is FRESH air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest is Jodie Foster, and we're going to look back on her life and career, starting with her early days as a child actor and her Oscar nominated performance in Taxi Driver when she was 12. Next month marks the film's 50th anniversary. She recently received an Oscar nomination for the film nyad, an Emmy win for the latest season of the HBO series True Detective, and is now starring in a new French language film, A Private Life. Along the way, Foster won many awards, including Oscars for the films the Accused and the Silence of the Lambs. In A Private Life, she plays an American Freudian psychoanalyst in Paris, and with the exception of a few lines, she speaks French throughout the film. When the film begins, everyone is angry with her, including her patients. One of them accuses her of having wasted his time. He's been in therapy with her for years, hoping it would help him quit smoking. It hasn't helped. So he tried a hypnotist and after only one session, he quit cigarettes. Foster's character is very skeptical of hypnosis. But when one of her patients, a beautiful woman, dies under mysterious circumstances, Foster's character wants to get to the bottom of what happened, hoping she wasn't in any way responsible. Despite her skepticism, she sees a hypnotist goes under, and that sets her on a path to uncover what happened to her patient, Jodie Foster. Welcome back to FRESH air. It's been years and my impression is your life has changed a lot since then.

[Jodie Foster]

I don't know, it's moved on. But it's the same old me. And I'm always so happy to be on NPR because I'm such an NPR fan and such an NPR head.

[Terry Gross]

That is so great to hear. So your new film is in French and you went to French language school, right?

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah. My mom, when I was about nine years old, she had never traveled anywhere in her life and she right before then she took a trip to France and fell in love with it and said, okay, you're gonna learn French, you're gonna go to an immersion school, and someday maybe you'll be a French actor. And so they dropped me in where it was a school, Lee C' est Francaise de Los Angeles, that that does everything in French. So it was science and math and history, everything in French. And I cried for about six months and then I spoke fluently and got over it.

[Terry Gross]

So hypnosis plays a key role in the new movie. Did you ever go under, even for research?

[Jodie Foster]

Well, actually, I Have I quit smoking? When I quit smoking, I went to a hypnotist, and I was a really, really big smoker. So I tried everything. And I'd tried to quit a million times. And, you know, like everybody, I'd get edgy or I'd gain weight or I couldn't sleep. So I went to this gu and, you know, wrote the check for $90. And, I don't know, he said a few things. I felt a little sleepy, but other than that, I didn't, you know, didn't go into any kind of trance. And I left thinking, well, this is dumb. I can't believe I gave that guy $90 and I could smoke tomorrow. And then I just never smoked again.

[Terry Gross]

Wow, that's great. That's kind of what happens in the movie.

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, exactly.

[Terry Gross]

Well, not really, no. And the movie sets her off on this, like, mystery. She becomes kind of a detective.

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people. My character, Lilian Steiner, is a Freudian psychoanalyst. And, you know, in the United States, psychoanalysis and Freud, we've kind of canceled him. You know, we decided he's, you know, misogynist. And, you know, nobody really wanted to follow Freudian principles. But what he was most famous for, of course, when he started was these case histories of people who came in with hysterical illnesses and said, you know, my right arm won't move, or I'm blind for no reason. And he would say, well, let's uncover parts of your past, and that will help this physical ailments. And in this character's case, she goes there because she can't stop crying. Not crying, but just water just keeps coming out of her eyes. And she's really annoyed. That's never happened to her. She's not particularly sad. She just. Water keeps coming out of her eyes. So interestingly, she goes back to this hypnosis, rolling her eyes the whole time. And psychoanalysis and hypnosis, they started off together with Freud and then grew apart and he denounced. So there's this ongoing hatred between the two that gets looked at in the film.

[Terry Gross]

So just a question about your Freudian therapy. Do you actually lie down on a.

[Jodie Foster]

Couch in the film? My patients lie down on the couch. My character's patients in my life, when I've done therapy. Absolutely not. But apparently this is how they do it. And you look either out a window or at a blank wall or perhaps at a painting that they put. You never look at the therapist. There's all these rules as to how. And it's all very interesting. And the people are fascinating, but it's definitely not something I would want to do.

[Terry Gross]

Would you be game to do a career retrospective? Sure, sure. Okay. I'm gonna go back to the very beginning.

[Jodie Foster]

Okay.

[Terry Gross]

You did a Coppertone commercial. A lot of people know that when you were three. And it wasn't like the billboard or picture version. This was like a TV commercial, right?

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

When we didn't see your bare behind. Unlike the picture version, you know, the photographs.

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah. There were a lot of things that were different. It was, you know, it was the 60s, and the dog would not perform. So the dog was. You know, they tried to get the dog to kind of pull at my bikini bottom, but the dog was, like, not having it.

[Terry Gross]

Okay. And moving on. This is from the Paul Lynn show, which was, I think, from the early 70s. And so the main character played by Paul Lynn rings of the doorbell, looking for his daughter and son in law who he either knows or thinks is living there. And when he walks in, he realizes, oh, it's like a hippie Buddhist commune.

[Jodie Foster]

Okay.

[Terry Gross]

Okay, here we go.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

Howie and Barbara Dickerson here.

[Jodie Foster]

Are you the fuzz?

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

No, I'm not the fuzz.

[Jodie Foster]

I'm not supposed to let the fuzz in.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

I'm Barbara's father.

[Terry Gross]

Uh.

[Jodie Foster]

Oh, I'm not supposed to let them in either.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

Let me talk to your mother.

[Jodie Foster]

Which one?

[Terry Gross]

Huh?

[Jodie Foster]

All the girls hear my mother.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

Just what a father wants to hear.

[Jodie Foster]

Pardon me, young man, but I'm looking.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

For Howie and Barbara Dickerson.

[Jodie Foster]

He's meditating.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

Well, can he hear me?

[Jodie Foster]

Only if you're Buddha.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

Look, I'm not gonna stand here and.

[Jodie Foster]

Play straight man to you. I really. I do remember Paul Lin because I really liked him.

[Terry Gross]

He's funny in this.

[Jodie Foster]

He was funny. He was funny. He was really nice to me. And of course, he's very memorable, so I do remember being on that show.

[Terry Gross]

Okay, I actually got one more.

[Jodie Foster]

Okay.

[Terry Gross]

This is a Crest TV commercial.

[Jodie Foster]

Oh, yeah.

[Terry Gross]

So four guys are playing golf. One of them sinks a putt. The other guys react, and at the same time, you run up on the green excited to tell your father about the visit to the dentist that you and your brother just had.

[Jodie Foster]

Okay.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

Dr. George. Yeah, Dan, Jody, our checkup.

[Jodie Foster]

Jimmy only had two cavities, and I didn't have any.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

Hey, we really did it. How'd you do it? We brushed with Crest.

[Terry Gross]

Now.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

Must be the Crest. It has fluoride. The others we tried didn't. Hey, great. A toothpaste should fight cavities. Crest can't promise everybody results like this. But we can promise most people good checkups. Fighting cavities is the whole idea behind Crest. Hey, George, maybe your game is really tennis.

[Jodie Foster]

Oh, boy.

[Terry Gross]

The acting is so terrible. Oh, yeah.

[Jodie Foster]

Well, but that was. That was what you were supposed to do. You were supposed to be terrible. We didn't know. I mean, just was a different style, you know, it was a different style.

[Terry Gross]

By which I think you mean it sounds like somebody just reading their lines for the first time.

[Jodie Foster]

Yes. Yes. And, yeah, I mean, I remember thinking, oh, well, this is not a job I'm gonna do when I'm a grownup. Because this seems like a very silly job. You know, I just learn lines, and then I say them. And somebody usually says to me. The first direction somebody tells me is usually act natural. Or, you know, maybe they'll say something like, be excited on that line. And that part of it had held no sway for me. I had no interest in that. The part that was interesting to me was being on set with these families of, you know, mostly guys. They really, you know, were all these brothers and fathers who would teach me things, and they'd talk about how the camera worked, and, you know, we would all be freezing together or complaining about the food together. And there was this community of people that I belonged to. And because I love movies and love television, that was such a big part of my life I was a part of. So that's the part that I remember. I don't remember the work particularly as being intriguing.

[Terry Gross]

Well, your mother was behind you doing all this. And since you didn't find it acting very intriguing, did you feel. Oh, and also because you became, like, the primary breadwinner. Breadwinner, yeah. Did you feel like you were being forced to do it?

[Jodie Foster]

No, I think that it was more complicated than that. You know, there were moments where, for example, I'd rebel because I didn't want to take my makeup off. Something I hated doing as a kid. You know, I hated taking my makeup off. And at the time, we wore all that kind of like orange pancake all over your face. And I would lie. So she'd say, did you take your makeup off? And I would say, yes. And of course, I hadn't. It was all over me. It was all over my white shirt. And then she would say to me, you know, you can quit anytime. You can always stop. You can say, I don't want to do this. And I sort of begrudgingly was like, okay, I'll go take my makeup off. I knew that it was more of a complicated threat than it was a choice. So yeah, I mean, it was work. It was real work. And I loved the part of that that got me respect, that gave me community, that made me part of a big family and then there parts of it that I didn't like so much.

[Terry Gross]

So you supported the family for a while. Did that put a lot of pressure on you?

[Jodie Foster]

I think my mom was very aware that that was unusual and that would put pressure on me. So she kind of sold it differently. You know, she would say. She would say, well, you know, you do one job, but then, you know, your sister does another job and we all participate, we're all doing a job and we're all. This is all part of the family. And you know, I think that was her way of a Making my brothers and sisters not feel like somehow they were beholden to me or to my brother who also was an actor and, you know, not having pressure on me, but also helping her ego a bit because I think that was hard for her to feel that she was being taken care of by a child.

[Terry Gross]

Well, it is unusual.

[Jodie Foster]

Yes, unusual. And you know, there's two things that can happen as a child actor. One is you develop resilience and you come up with a plan and a way to survive intact. And there are real advantages to that in life. And I really feel grateful for the advantages that that's given me, the benefits that that's given me. Or the other is you totally fall apart and you can't take it. And, you know, you really have psychological problems when you get older and maybe.

[Terry Gross]

Drug problems too, because it's so. I mean, I've not experienced it, but it seems to be very challenging to survive that. As desirable as it might be to outsiders, it.

[Jodie Foster]

And you know, there's lots of things you're built for and things you're not built for. And you know, I always say the analogy is like, if you're an astronaut, you know, some people can do zero G and some people just can't. Some people are fine with it. They find it freeing and it's lovely and they feel light. They like the solitude of being in space. And other people are like, I'm going crazy here and I need to see people and I just want to throw up all the time. So I happened to be one of those people who was able to find resilience and was able to use it to become. Use the challenge in some ways to become a deeper person.

[Terry Gross]

You were mauled by a LION at age 9, I read that. But what happened was this On a shoot.

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, it was an accident. I was working with a lion who I loved and worked with every day. Was an old lion, had no teeth, very old on a Disney movie. And they kept them in zoo structures at night, but they hadn't put enough security on them. So kids at night, in the middle of the night would come and she would shoot BB guns at the lions. There were two other lions. One was a stand in lion and one was like a stunt lion. So they let the.

[Terry Gross]

Were they in the union?

[Jodie Foster]

Exactly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's a whole, you know, animal training thing that we do in the film business. And so the trainer couldn't get the old lion to work, so they. He just wouldn't move. And you can't make a 500 pound lion do anything. So they got the standing lion and the standing lion worked all day and we were ending the day going up a hillside. I think they might have been tugging him with a. Guiding him with a piano wire, which is a thin filament. And I guess he snapped. I mean, he came around. He picked me up by the hip and shook me like this.

[Terry Gross]

Wow, he picked you up like in his mouth?

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, yep. He held me horizontally and then flipped me around and shook me. So I watched the entire film crew run in the opposite direction. Sideways. Oh, my God.

[Terry Gross]

To get you help or to run away from the lion.

[Jodie Foster]

Run away from the lion. And then I remember showing great courage. Yes. And then I remember thinking, oh, this must be an earthquake. I knew about earthquakes. I grew up in la, so I knew about earthquakes. And then I guess.

[Terry Gross]

Wait, wait, are you saying you didn't know you were in the lion's mouth?

[Jodie Foster]

No, I guess I was. You know, it's a shocking thing that happened. I had no idea what was happening. The only thing I remember is I remember his mane coming around my. When I looked down, I could see his mane coming around. And then the next thing I knew it was an earthquake. And then he dropped me and the trainer said, drop it. And the lion was so well trained that he dropped me. And then as I was rolling down the hill, he came running after me. And then he put his paw on me like, I got this. What do we do next? So, yeah, it was a scary moment. The good news is I'm fine. I have some scars that are very delicate and dainty and have moved all over my body because apparently that's what happens when you get older, your scars move around your body. And I'm not afraid of lions. In fact, whenever I see a lion I went to Africa not too long ago, and everybody else was terrified. They were petrified because the lions were so close and they were eating prey and all of this. And I was like, oh, makes me want to go out there and ride on top of them.

[Terry Gross]

Did it make you think that acting was unsafe?

[Jodie Foster]

No, no. Accidents happen. And I think my mom was really smart. I think she, you know, she talked to me and she, you know, it wasn't the lion's fault, and I understood that. I went back and worked with the lion. I was in a hospital for, you know, three or four days or something. They determined I was okay. So I went back and I worked with the lion. And I think that was the right thing to do, which is, you know, I was very lucky. And they're animals and we love them, and, you know, you go through the procedures to make sure that you're safe. And I worked with lots of other, you know, I worked with camels, I worked with pigs, I worked with lots of other animals. I think she did the right thing, which is just to make sure that I got through.

[Terry Gross]

That's amazing. Resilience.

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, I guess, you know, I guess that's a good thing that I'm trained as a person and as an actor to deaden myself somehow to some of my feelings. That might get in the way. But when you say it out loud, it sounds like there will be psychological ramifications down the line, which I'm sure is true. You know, I think there's a part of me that has been made resilient by what I've done for a living and has been able to control my emotions in order to do that in a role. And also that leads to problems when you're older. You know, those survival skills get in the way, and you have to learn how to. How to ditch them when you get older and they're not serving you anymore.

[Terry Gross]

I think your mother sometimes exercised, like, such good judgment in terms of choosing roles for you, though some people might find that judgment very questionable when it comes to Taxi Driver. But that's one of my very favorite films. It's such a deep psychological study of the characters in it.

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, I couldn't be more grateful to have. I mean, what luck to have been part of that. Our golden age of Cinema in the 70s, some of the great, greatest movies that America ever made, the greatest filmmakers, auteur films that were really talking about our times in ways that challenging it in ways that. That had never happened before. So I couldn't be happier that she chose these roles for me. And a lot of it was, yes, it was a vicarious effort on her part that she wanted something from me that she couldn't achieve in her life. And what that was was respect, meaning, and to be a part of an art movement, to resist being objectified and to make films that matter and that would matter to women of the next generation. And, you know, my mom, who grew up in a pre feminist time, just didn't she didn't have those opportunities to be able to play a part in the next role that women were gonna play.

[Terry Gross]

Did she approve of feminism once it, you know, started really blossoming?

[Jodie Foster]

Oh, yes. Yes. And filled with mixed messages. Like everybody of that era, you know, there was it was always very confusing, which, you know, anybody who's my age probably has the same stories of their mom saying you can do anything, you can be a doctor, you can be a lawyer, you know, but, you know, make sure you don't ever make a man mad, okay, because, you know, try to manipulate him and say nice things about, you know, flatter him rather than make him mad. Because making a man mad is dangerous. You know, there was just a lot of mixed messages of, you know, you can do anything, but you won't be able to take care of yourself. So who are you going to marry that's going to take care of you? And, you know, that's what we do as kids is you rebel against your parents for the things that you feel are not true to your life and that you feel are all fear. They're just throwing fear at you and you reject that to become your own person.

[Terry Gross]

So did you ever take her advice of always flattering men? No.

[Jodie Foster]

But I certainly knew when there was a drunken guy in a bar who I knew to say something nice and try to change the subject and leave as quickly as I could. I think like any woman who wants to save their life, we know that historically we are in danger.

[Terry Gross]

Let's take a short break here, and then we'll be back. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jodie Foster. Her new movie is called A Private Life, and it opens in select theaters January 16th and more widely on the 30th. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

[Jodie Foster]

Hi, this is Molly Sievin Esper, digital producer at FRESH air.

[Terry Gross]

And this is Teri Gross, host of the show.

[Jodie Foster]

One of the things I do is.

[Terry Gross]

Write the weekly newsletter, and I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week shows, staff recommendations and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read.

[Jodie Foster]

It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week. An exclusive.

[Terry Gross]

So [e-mail] fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. So I want to focus a little on Taxi Driver since next month marks the 50th anniversary of its release. So let's start with a couple amazing. Yeah, and this is an example of your mother being brilliant in accepting the part for you and of being controversial because she accepted the part for you because you play a 12 year old and you were 12 when you shot this. And you are what would then be called a prostitute. And today a sex worker who has a pimp played by Harvey Keitel. And Robert De Niro plays Travis Bickle, the taxi driver. And De Niro sees this and so he wants to buy some time with you to save you. He kind of has a savior complex. So here's a scene where he has tried to talk with you and rescue you, take him away from the pimp. But you don't want to be rescued, so he ends up taking you to a diner. He's trying to convince you to go back home, be with your parents and live just live a better life. And you speak first.

[Jodie Foster]

Why do you want me to go back to my parents? I mean, they hate me. Why do you think I split in the first place? There ain't nothing there.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

Yeah, but you can't live like this. It's a hill. A girl should live at home.

[Jodie Foster]

Didn't you ever hear of women's lib?

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

What do you mean, women's lib? You're a young girl. You should be at home now. You should be dressed up. You should be going out with boys. You should be going to school. You know, that kind of stuff.

[Jodie Foster]

God, are you square.

[Actor in Paul Lynn show / Commercial voice]

Hey, I'm not square. You're the one that's square. You're full of man. What are you talking about? You walk out with those creeps and lowlifes and degenerates out on the street and you sell your little for nothing man for some low life pimp. Stands in a hall. I'm square? You're the one that's square, man.

[Terry Gross]

I think Paul Schrader doesn't ever get quite enough credit for writing this. I mean, people who really know movies like think he's made terrific movies. But Scorsese did a brilliant job directing it. But Paul Schrader did a brilliant job writing it. You know, God's lonely man and all of Travis's monologues. Did you get to talk to Schrader about the screenplay?

[Jodie Foster]

Well, you know, at 12 years old, my mom. If you saw Paul Schrader at that time, he really was Travis Bickle. Right? He wore that army jacket and he mumbled a lot. And he stayed up all night and stayed up for hours and hours at a time. My mom didn't want me anywhere near pertrator. She was like, don't talk to him, whatever you do.

[Terry Gross]

But that's funny. Cause it's like you can play a prostitute who's 12 years old in the movie, but don't talk to the person who wrote this.

[Jodie Foster]

Well, yeah, look, I was an actor. I finally understood through working with Robert De Niro. Cause he really took the time to show me what acting was, that it wasn't just saying lines that somebody else wrote. That it actually was creating a character. I didn't know that before I was 12.

[Terry Gross]

How did your mother feel about playing, you know, a 12 year old sex worker? And how did you feel about it? How much did you understand what that meant? And also the film has some pretty explicit violence.

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, I mean, I think that my mom knew he was a great artist. We loved Mean Streets. We saw it three or four times. My mom saw that I was interested in art and cinema and took me to every foreign film she could find. Mostly because she wanted me to hear other languages. But you know, we went to very dark, interesting German films that lasted eight hours long. And you know, we saw all the French new wave movies and we had long conversations about movies and what they meant. And I think that she was.

[Terry Gross]

This was before you were 12? Yeah.

[Jodie Foster]

And some of them were inappropriate. You know, some of there were moments I remember where she'd be like, why don't you go get. Let's go get popcorn. Because there were moments in the film that were not appropriate for a kid.

[Terry Gross]

Too sexual.

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, yeah. I remember seeing Last Time in Paris and my mom going like, maybe this is a good time for you to go get a Coke.

[Terry Gross]

There are adults in the ladies room ever look at you and say, what are you doing here?

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, But I also think they admired her. I think they knew that I was. Precocious is a weird word. I think I did have a skill that was beyond my years. And I had a strong sense of self. So, you know, I'm not very good at math, I'm not terribly good at science, but I did have a, almost like an idiot savant ability to understand emotions and character. That was beyond my ears.

[Terry Gross]

But you've also said that it was hard for you to express emotion unless you were acting.

[Jodie Foster]

Yes, and thank God I was acting. So it gave me an outlet that I would not have had. I had to develop. It was a sink or swim. I had to develop an emotional side. I had to cut off my brain sometimes to play characters in order to be good. And I wanted to be good, you know, if I was, I wanted to be excellent. So in order to do that, I had to learn emotions and I had to learn not only how to access them, but also how to control them so that I could give them intention.

[Terry Gross]

You've said De Niro, state and character during the whole shoot and before it too. So. So what he would do is take you to a diner and not necessarily say anything.

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, yeah. He had a very Travis Bickle personality during that shoot. So he was pretty boring. He was very awkward and very boring. And it was difficult for me. I was a 12 year old kid. I was like, oh God, here comes this guy again. He's taking me to a diner and he's gonna not talk for 20 minutes. And I would talk to the waiters and we also would run lines. So we ran the lines. Sort of a normal rehearsal process where we ran the lines. And I think by the third time, he started going and improvising around the lines and encouraging me to do the same and trying to show me how to dip in. So, you know, he would go off on a tangent, some long improvised tangent. And then I had to find the opportunity for me to place my next line to when was the right time? And really talking about reactions, you know, how does that make you feel? And he really, he was the first person that ever took the time to treat me like an actual.

[Terry Gross]

Was that fun for you, doing those improvs?

[Jodie Foster]

Oh, it was amazing. It was just this huge eureka moment. I'll never forget it. I remember being excited and being kind of sweaty and my heart racing when I came home to the hotel room and came up in the elevator and I said to my mom, like, wow, I finally get it. Like, I really get it and I want to be a part of this. And I remember that summer specifically because we were in New York City. So of course we saw a million plays. I saw Pippin and A Little Night Music and Chicago and, you know, just all these Equus, all these amazing plays. And we also went to see movies. You know, we saw Panic in Needle park and we saw Straw Dogs and all those films of that era. And I suddenly was like, oh, I want to be a part of this amazing thing that I feel passionate about. And it was just it all happened in a moment.

[Terry Gross]

We have to take another short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jodie Foster, and her new film, which is in French, is called Private Life. It opens January 16th in select theaters and on the 30th more widely. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR. So you had to undergo a psychological exam because you were underage before doing this very adult kind of role. What was the evaluation like?

[Jodie Foster]

Oh, the evaluation was actually it was suggested by my lawyer because they were trying to stop me from playing the role. The Board of Education had questions about it. They had just gotten a lot of flack because Brooke Shields had just been in the Louis Mal movie Pretty Baby, and there was a lot of flack about that, the kind of, you know, the sexuality of the movie and her being served naked on a cake, stuff like that. And so my lawyer, who was Pat Brown. Right. So that's Jerry Brown's dad. That's very cool bit of trivia. He suggested that we do a psychological evaluation. So they took me to a child psychologist, and the guy just asked me a bunch of questions like, what food do you like? I was like, Chinese. What movies do you like? And I told them very simple questions. And I guess by that they determined that I was just a normal person and I would be fine. And then I understood the difference between acting and who I was as a person.

[Terry Gross]

You know, you mentioned Brooke Shields and Pretty Baby. She's very sexualized in that. And you're sexualized in the sense that you're a prostitute in it, but at the same time, you're not acting sexy. Right. You know what I mean? You're very like, hey, I'm doing my job. You paid for me. So like, let's do it. You can leave after that. You know, you're just like, let's get this done, which is kind of interesting.

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, it was. That's why Scorsese wanted me for the part. I mean, my mom was not convinced. I remember going in for the meeting and her saying to him, look, you know her. And I came in my school uniform with a blue blazer that had a crest on it, Peter Pan collar and, you know, knee socks. And she said, well, listen, if you think that she can play this role, then great. So I think he liked the contrast. I think he liked the ambiguity of that, of seeing somebody who's a child, you know, in some Ways who is sexualized as a woman but isn't a victim.

[Terry Gross]

You had been in movies longer than Scorsese was making them, or De Niro and Keitel had been acting. Did you ever give them advice?

[Jodie Foster]

No, I didn't give them any advice, but I did make them feel more comfortable. I think they were both very nervous, you know, Robert De Niro, very nervous when there's a moment where I have to, you know, pull down his fly. And in fact, they got my sister, who was 21, and she. I guess she looks a little bit like me, but she's the same size as me. And they had to bring her on in order to actually physically do the shot where she has to unzip his fly. And he was just so nervous. They were both so nervous that they kept giggling when we were doing the rehearsals. And then De Niro will be like, no, I got this. I got this. And then he would start talking to me and say, well, you know, maybe you can put your arm around my shoulder. And then he would start laughing. And I made them feel comfortable and go, like, look here. How about this? How about I put my hand here, you put your hand there. We do this. Like this. I mean, kind of like, you know, nowadays when you do the sex scenes or any kind of scene that there's physical contact. We have what's called. Wow, what are they called now?

[Terry Gross]

Intimacy Coordinator.

[Jodie Foster]

Intimacy coordinator, Exactly. I never had an intimacy coordinator until I did True Detective. And there I was, you know, almost 60 years old and going, wow, this is amazing. Where have you intimacy coordinators been my whole life when, you know, we actors were just busy working it out together, you know, trying to say, like, how can we make this very awkward thing not so awkward?

[Terry Gross]

So I just want to say again that Taxi driver celebrates its 50th anniversary in February. And if you haven't seen the film, it's so good.

[Jodie Foster]

It's a great, great movie.

[Terry Gross]

So you might not want to talk about this, but. But did you ever feel like if the MeToo movement had been around when whatever happened, that you would be a part of that movement?

[Jodie Foster]

You know, I'm not 100% sure why, and I have discussed this with some other actors where I see what happened in the MeToo movement, and it's appalling. And I was completely unaware of that. And how come I didn't, you know, how come I never fell into that category and what happened? What saved me? And I've really had to examine that. Like, how did I get saved? There were microaggressions of course, that are, you know, anybody who's in the workplace has, you know, misogynist microaggressions. Like that's just a part of being a woman. Right. But what kept me from having those bad experiences, those terrible experiences. And what I came to believe, and you can tell me if you think this is wrong, is that I had a certain amount of power by the time I was like. So by the time I had my first Oscar nomination, I was part of a different category of people that had power and I was too dangerous to touch. I could have, you know, ruined people's careers or I could have called uncle. So I wasn't on the block. It also might be just my personality, you know, that I am a head first person and I approach the world in a head first way. It's very difficult to emotionally manipulate me because I don't operate with my emotions on the surface. Predators use whatever they can in order to manipulate and get people to do what they want them to do. And that's much easier when the person is younger, when the person is weaker, when the person has no power. That's precisely what predatory behavior is about, is using power in order to diminish people, in order to dominate them. And you know, if you're a 50 year old man, it's not hard to do that to a 13 year old because you're going to be dominant, you're going to know how to talk to people. So I got very lucky to be protected as a young person by my mom and by the good men around me that cared about me, that were father figures, that didn't want anything bad to ever happen to me.

[Terry Gross]

You asked if I agreed with your perspective and I certainly do. But I'm wondering, you had played even, you know, even as a kid and certainly in Taxi Driver, like girls who could talk back, girls who could talk, kind of tough, girls who could challenge. Did that help you in life? Cause you knew what it was to talk that way?

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. Yeah, I guess I was empowered by the people I played in some ways. And I also was born a powerful person. Don't ask me why. Sometimes, you know, I'm five foot three and every once in a while when somebody's doing some shenanigans, I get out of my car, I slam the door and I say, show me your license.

[Terry Gross]

Really?

[Jodie Foster]

And shockingly, people do it, or they, you know, or they listen to me because I played a powerful person on TV or because I was born that way or I don't know, you know, maybe that's the Karen in me that believes that somehow I should be listened to. I really should be listened to. I deserve to be listened to. You know, I do think that that has a lot to do. Who I am in the public sphere, the personality that I was born with, but also that I had to develop in order to stay safe and to stay powerful, has kept me away from a lot of bad stories.

[Terry Gross]

Can you give an example of a time you slammed the door and said, show me your license?

[Jodie Foster]

Well, yeah, it was. Yeah, it was a real thing, I suppose, where I saw somebody being bullied in a car situation. And I got out of the car and was like, okay, you stand over there and you stand over there. I want you 10ft apart. You know, that kind of thing.

[Terry Gross]

Wow.

[Jodie Foster]

But all five, three of me, but yeah, I remember being in a situation I was on a, you know, not to be named. I was on a movie set with a, you know, powerful, out of control actor and he called me to his home and there were some, lots of problems happening on the set. And I just called you here because I wanted to tell you that I think your behavior on set's been terrible. And I feel like you're not participating in the movie, you're not doing your best work. And I don't know what all this school stuff is that you're doing and all of this other stuff that you're concentrating on, that's not the movie. But I'm really disappointed in you. And I think that you need to be more a part of things. And what do you think about that? I waited like five minutes, I swallowed and I said, I think that you've made very few movies that you don't have any experience. I've made a lot of them. I think you have egregious behavior on set and you may not understand what my education means to me. That's fine that you're ignorant, but it really doesn't, you know. And I went on this light. I don't know where it came from, but I went on this super, you know, articulate rant. And at the end of it, there was a pause and he said, okay, I'll meet you downstairs. He was like, ah, whatever, you know. And so I guess when I look back at that moment, I'd be like, oh, was that. Oh, what was gonna happen there? What did he think was gonna happen when he said all this horrible, mean things to me? Did he think I was gonna cry? Did he think I was gonna go like, oh, you're right, I'm terrible. I'm so bad. Like, what did he think was gonna happen?

[Terry Gross]

Probably that's what he thought was gonna happen.

[Jodie Foster]

Yeah. Yeah. And I have had other circumstances where, you know, a director, for example, during the scene was, you know, screaming at me, calling me terrible names, you know, and just trying to get a reaction out of me. And I don't react that way. I say things like, wow, I'm sorry you feel that way. I respond with my head when somebody comes at me with an un.

[Terry Gross]

That's really interesting. We have to take another short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jodie Foster, and her new film, which is in French, is called A Private Life. It opens January 16th in select theaters and on the 30th more widely. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR. So I want to go back to 2013 in our retrospective when you won a Golden Globe Lifetime Achievement Award. And this acceptance speech was a speech that a lot of people took notice of. So I'm just going to play this clip.

[Jodie Foster]

Sure.

[Terry Gross]

Okay. Here we go.

[Jodie Foster]

I hope that you're not disappointed that there won't be a big coming out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the Stone Age, in those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family, co workers, and then gradually, proudly, to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now, apparently, I'm told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a primetime reality show. And, you know, you guys might be surprised, but I am not. Honey boo boo child. No, I'm sorry. That's just not me. It never was and and it never will be. But please don't cry because my reality show would be so boring. I would have to make out with Malion Cotillard or I'd have to spank Daniel Craig's bottom, you know, just to stay on the air. It's, you know, not bad work. You can get it, though. But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you'd had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe, maybe then you too might value privacy above all else.

[Terry Gross]

Okay.

[Jodie Foster]

So it's wow, that was a lot.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. But you really tease that as like, I'm gonna come out as gay. And I really like what you said about people expect you if you're in the public eye and you're gay that you have to issue a press release about it?

[Jodie Foster]

Well, I don't know that that's just about your sexuality. I think that that's what people, they expect. Celebr and I did not want to participate in celebrity culture. I wanted to make movies that I loved. I wanted to give everything of myself on screen, and I wanted to survive intact by having a life.

[Terry Gross]

And was that in part because you're, you know, you're a private person and that's the way you are, but also because you didn't want to come out as gay because it would have. It would have inspired so much gossip and distraction and maybe a loss of roles.

[Jodie Foster]

What's important to consider is that I grew up in a different time where people couldn't be who they were and we didn't have the kinds of freedoms that we have now. And I look at my son's generation and bless them, you know, that they have a kind of justice that we just didn't have access to. And I did the best I could. I had had a big plan in mind of making films that could make people better, and that's all I wanted to do, was make movies. I didn't want to be a public figure or a pioneer or any of those things. And I benefited from all of the pioneers that came before me that did that hard work of, you know, having tomatoes thrown at them and being unsafe. And I thank them. But we don't all have to have the same role. And I think my role was making movies that matter, creating female characters that were human characters and creating a huge body of work and then being able to look back at the pattern of that body of work and go like, oh, wow, Jodi was. She played a doctor, she played a mother, she played a scientist, she played an astronaut. She played, you know, she killed all the bad guys. You know, she did all of those things and, you know, had a lesbian wife and had two kids and, you know, was a complete person that had a whole other life. And I think that will be valuable someday down the line that I was able to keep my life intact and leave a legacy.

[Terry Gross]

Jodie Foster, I've enjoyed this so much. Thank you so much for coming back to the show.

[Jodie Foster]

Thank you.

[Terry Gross]

And good luck with the new movie, and I hope we talk again.

[Jodie Foster]

Me, too.

[Terry Gross]

Jodie Foster stars in the new film A Private Life. It opens in select theaters Friday and opens more widely on the 30th. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, we'll talk about Marco Rubio. He once called President Donald Trump a con artist. Now a secretary of state, he's defending policies he once opposed and overseeing deep cuts to the very foreign aid programs he once supported. New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins will talk about his new article on Rubio's political transformation. I hope you'll join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interview. Follow us on Instagram @NPRFreshAir. Fresh Air's executive producers are Danny Miller and Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Bodonato, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Anna Bauman, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.