Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster (born November 19, 1962 in Los Angeles, California) is an American actress, director and producer. She received her first Oscar nomination at age thirteen (for Taxi Driver) and has never looked back.
More than three decades later — having gained two Best Actress Oscars and two more nominations, a never-ending stream of critical praise and a flawless record as a top box-office draw for her wide releases — Foster is known for playing a wide variety of lead roles in virtually every single genre, including foreign films, films she's directed, indie films, and some of the most popular movies of all time. Her Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs was named the top heroine in American film by the AFI (as well as earning her a second Oscar for a lead role). Her role in Contact led to an asteroid being named in her honour, and at the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards, she received a lifetime achievement award and publicly came out about her sexuality for the first time, while thanking her then-partner Cydney Bernard.
Besides her acting work, Foster has directed four films: Little Man Tate, Home for the Holidays, The Beaver and Money Monster. She also directed two episodes for Orange Is the New Black, one for House of Cards, and one for Black Mirror.
She's rumored to have a genius-level IQ, graduated magna cum laude from Yale, and was the first teenage celebrity to host Saturday Night Live at age 14 (and was the youngest host until Drew Barrymore hosted in 1982 at age seven). Jodie Foster has given "celebrity" an... interesting definition, to say the least.
More tragically, she was also the victim of a stalker that eventually escalated into her stalker attempting to assassinate President Ronald Reagan
in 1981 and dedicating it to her. This incident scarred her enough that to this day, interviewers are warned not to bring it up before talking to her, and she's been known to walk off immediately if they ignore that advice. She's only talked about it twice: first, in a 1982 essay for Esquire magazine entitled "Why Me?", and in 1999 on The Charlie Rose Show. She was also interviewed in 1981 by PBS when the investigation was still ongoing.
In general, Foster is very secretive about her private life; she gave birth to two sons but has not revealed the identity of the children's father(s), and as mentioned above, took until 2013 to come out of the closet about being in relationships with women. In 2014, she married actor and photographer Alexandra Hedison.
Filmography on this wiki:
- Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) as Audrey
- Taxi Driver (1976) as Iris
- Bugsy Malone (1976) as Tallulah
- Freaky Friday (1976) as Annabel Andrews / Ellen Andrews
- The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976) as Rynn Jacobs
- Candleshoe (1977) as Casey Brown
- Carny (1980) as Donna
- The Hotel New Hampshire (1984) as Frannie Berry
- The Accused (1988) as Sarah Tobias
- Stealing Home (1988) as Katie Chandler
- The Silence of the Lambs (1991) as Clarice Starling
- Little Man Tate (1991) as Dede Tate
- Shadows and Fog (1991) as Jodie
- Sommersby (1993) as Laurel Sommersby
- Maverick (1994) as Annabelle Bransford
- Nell (1994) as Nell Kellty
- Contact (1997) as Dr. Eleanor Arroway
- Anna and the King (1999) as Anna Leonowens
- The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002) as Sister Assumpta
- Panic Room (2002) as Meg Altman
- A Very Long Engagement (2004) as Elodie Gordes
- Flightplan (2005) as Kyle Pratt
- Inside Man (2006) as Madeline White
- The Brave One (2007) as Erica Bain
- Nim's Island (2008) as Alexandra Rover
- The Beaver (2011) as Meredith Black
- Carnage (2011) as Penelope Longstreet
- Elysium (2013) as Defense Secretary Jessica Delacourt
- Hotel Artemis (2018) as Jean "The Nurse" Thomas
- Mayberry R.F.D. (2 episodes, 1968–70) as Fairy / Little Girl
- Julia (episode "Romeo and Julia", 1969) as Cindy Blanchard
- The Courtship of Eddie's Father (5 episodes, 1969–71) as Joey Kelly
- Gunsmoke (3 episodes, 1969–72) as Susan Sadler / Patricia / Marieanne
- The Wonderful World of Disney (episode "Menace on the Mountain, 1970) as Suellen McIver
- Daniel Boone (episode "Bringing Up Josh", 1970) as Rachel
- Adam-12 (episode "Log 55: Missing Girl", 1970) as Mary Bennett
- Nanny and the Professor (episode "The Scientific Approach", 1970) as Angela
- My Three Sons (6 episodes, 1971–72) as Susan / Priscilla Hobson
- Ironside (1967) (episode "Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Murder", 1972) as Pip Barker
- Bonanza (episode "A Place to Hide", 1972) as Bluebird
- The Partridge Family (episode "The Eleven-Year Itch", 1973) as Julie Lawrence
- Kung Fu (1972) (episode "Alethea", 1973) as Althea Patricia Ingram
- The New Perry Mason (episode "The Case of the Deadly Deeds", 1973) as Hildy Haynes
- The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan (1972) as Anne Chan
- The New Scooby-Doo Movies (episode "Wednesday Is Missing", 1972) as Pugsley Addams
- The Addams Family (episode "The Addams Family in New York", 1973)
- Frasier (episode "Moon Dance", 1996) as Marlene
- The X-Files (episode "Never Again", 1997) as "Betty"
- The Simpsons (episode "Four Great Women and a Manicure", 2009) as Maggie Simpson
- Tales from the Darkside episode "Do Not Open This Box" (1988)
- Little Man Tate (1993)
- Home for the Holidays (1995)
- The Beaver (2011)
- Orange Is the New Black episodes "Lesbian Request Denied" (2013) and "Thirsty Bird" (2014)
- House of Cards (US) episode "Chapter 22" (2014)
- Money Monster (2016)
- Black Mirror episode "ArkAngel" (2017)
- Tales from the Loop episode "Home" (2020)
Tropes and trivia about her works:
- The Cast Showoff: She's perfectly fluent in French. Due to her unusual upbringing (she spent part of her youth in France and watched numerous local films, then studied at a French school in Los Angeles, graduating as the best of her class), she can speak it without any trace of American accent and demonstrates it in A Very Long Engagement, The Brave One and Stop Calling Me Baby!. She also dubs herself in French.
- Casting Gag: Her role in The X-Files, as a voice telling a violent, mentally unstable loner to murder people, is not only exceedingly grim but downright baffling, given her infamous reluctance to discuss the John Hinckley incident.
- Contractual Purity: Played With. She made several films for Disney before and after she became a star as a teen prostitute in Taxi Driver.
- Former Child Star: She is the most extreme Hollywood example of a child actor who grew well and has enjoyed a highly successful adult career.
- Magnum Opus Dissonance: She considers Nell to be her best performance. She actually thought her performance in The Accused was so bad she was prepared to quit acting over it (before she won the Oscar of course).
- Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: She frequently dubs herself in French. She can also speak some Spanish and German.
- The Other Darrin: She opted not to reprise her role as Clarice Starling in Hannibal, so Julianne Moore replaced her.
- Real-Life Relative: Her older sister Connie was her stand-in for some of the more risque scenes in Taxi Driver.
- Remake Cameo: She was offered the role of the mother in Freaky Friday (2003) but turned it down, not wanting the Casting Gag to overshadow the movie's publicity.
- Romance on the Set: She met Cydney Bernard on Sommersby and they were in a relationship for fifteen years.
- Star-Making Role: Taxi Driver established her child career. The Silence of the Lambs established her adult career.
- Wag the Director: She changed her character in The Brave One from a television reporter to a radio host because she is an avid listener of the radio.
- What Could Have Been:
- She was cast in the Made-for-TV Movie The Best Little Girl In The World, but an actor's strike put production on hold. By the time it picked back up again, Jodie was already studying at Yale, so the role went to Jennifer Jason Leigh.
- The role of Violet in Pretty Baby was written for her. She turned it down, not wanting to be typecast as teen prostitutes. Brooke Shields was cast for the finished film.
- The Game originally had a part for her as Michael Douglas's daughter. The latter insisted that the female character be changed to his sister instead. Feeling she was too young to play his sister, Jodie withdrew from the film.
- She was considered for the part of Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction.
- She turned down the role of Catherine Tromell in Basic Instinct, which became a Star-Making Role for Sharon Stone.
- Thelma & Louise was written with her in mind to play Thelma. Ridley Scott felt she was too young for the role, and cast Geena Davis instead.
- Princess Leia in A New Hope was originally written as a younger character, with Jodie in mind. When George Lucas decided to make the character older, Carrie Fisher was cast.
- Word of Saint Paul: She considers Silence of the Lambs to be a Spiritual Antithesis to Taxi Driver. In the latter, she's in bondage and rescued. In the former, she now rescues the young woman. What's more is that Harvey Keitel plays her pimp in Taxi Driver and later plays Clarice Starling's mentor in Red Dragon (though Jodie doesn't appear in that film).
