Mel Gibson tells her dirty jokes. James woods teases her. And Robert Downey Jnr cracks her up. She’s an absolute professional, as all her directors will attest, and the most enigmatic single mother in America. In a town that’s never rated intelligence, the Yale educated two time Oscar winner is a major power broker. Juliette Hohnen meets Miss Foster, the self-possessed star with a mind of her own.
When Jodie Foster talks about being one of the most powerful women in Hollywood, it doesn’t sound like boasting. The 37 year old actress, director and producer - who reportedly earned 9 million to star in her latest film, Anna and the King – is just being her normal business like self. ‘When they talk about the statistics that show who the most powerful woman in Hollywood is, it’s always down to international sales;, she explains, sounding more like a studio executive than and A-list actress. ‘The reason I’m always number one or two is that I only make one movie every two or three years, so that movie performs well.’
Being granted an audience with Foster is a big deal. Not because
She comes surrounded by an annoying entourage of burly security
men with earpieces she doesn't. It's simply because they rarely
happen. In fact, when I enter her suite at the Four Seasons in Los
Angeles and find her perched on a sofa wearing a simple business
suit, glasses balanced atop her perfectly formed nose, Foster looks as
though she's the journalist waiting for her interview with the big star.
I am lucky enough to be having lunch with the two-time
Academy Award winner, who rises to meet me with a kind
smile and a hearty handshake. The truth is that I'm a little
nervous and I start fumbling with my tape recorder, because
Jodie Foster is no press-release-regurgitating dummy. She studied
literature at Yale and graduated near the top of her class; she
speaks fluent French and has graced the Hollywood A-list for m
of her 34-year career. And then there's the not-so-small matter
Egg, the highly successful Production Company that Foster set
seven years ago, which has been responsible for left-of-centre hits
like Nell and Home for the Holidays.
Sitting opposite the woman who, like her audience, gulped back
the fear as she watched Sir Anthony Hopkins's Hannibal Lecter
demonstrate how he liked to eat somebody's liver with fava beans
in Silence of the Lambs, you suddenly realize how truly talented
she is. Not only because she subtly transforms her voice, her face
and her demeanor for each performance, but also because in
real life she's about the last person you'd expect to be an actor.
She openly admits that had she not been a child actor (she was just 12 when she appeared in Bugsy Malone and Taxi Driver),
she probably would never have chosen to be one as an adult. 'The
fact that I'm an actor surprises me. I just don't have the personality,
she says simply. 'But acting does two things for me. It's very healing,
because otherwise I would have been one of those kids who couldn't
get out of their head. And it's an opportunity to be emotionally
brave in ways that I can't be in my own life. I get to play these survivor characters that go out there and are vulnerable. They tell it like
it is and go through events I don't know if I could live through.'
Re-entering the acting world in 1988, after her time at Yale,
Foster played the role of a rape victim in The Accused. Her
performance - and the Oscar that accompanied it took her a
step closer to membership of the sparsely populated club of
critical darlings who are also box-office gold.
The film she hopes will keep her up there in Hollywood's upper
echelons is the non-musical remake of The King and I, featuring
Asian action star Chow Yun-Fat. Before sitting down to watch
Anna and the King, one wonders why on earth Foster, with
her record of many hits and very few misses, would want to
be involved in the remake of a movie that conjures up images of
Deborah Kerr clapping her hands and singing 'Shall we dance?',
not to mention Yul Brynner and all that maddening 'et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera' business. It's a feeling that persists even
30 minutes into the film. But then suddenly, almost against
your better judgment, you are swept up in Miss Foster's huge
hooped skirt, falling in love with Chow Yun-Fat (Asia's answer
to Cary Grant) and loving the movie.
The script was sent to Foster shortly after she had given birth to
her son Charlie, who is now 18 months old. Having traveled to China
and Thailand before he was born, she 'really wanted to make an
Asian story that wasn't about a bunch of colonizers sitting around
drinking tea. And this,' she found, 'was the chance to do a really epic,
big film. You know, I'd never made one of those costume epics before.’
So she packed up her baby and moved the Foster household to
Malaysia. 'Being there ended up being the best part of it, even
though it was pretty challenging. The heat was unbelievably difficult, more than anyone anticipated it would be.' But she lived up
to her reputation as one of the most professional actresses in
Hollywood and was the last person on the set to complain. The
film's producer, Lawrence Bender, tells the story of how she fell
over on the first day of shooting: 'She literally did a complete somersault and landed on her back. After a crew member had put some
disinfectant on her sore hands, she started shooting minutes later,
when she could easily have gone back to her trailer-.' The director,
Andy Tennant, who had just finished filming Ever After with Drew
Barrymore, is also highly enthusiastic about his leading lady.
When asked whether Foster had the same habit as certain fellow
powerful actor-directors, of interfering with and re-cutting their
young directors' work, Tennant replies: I don't think that it would
even have crossed her mind. She is so delightful on set. She hangs
out, she reads a book. You say, “Jodie, we’re ready for you” – and bing, bing, bing, she does it and then goes back to her book. By her own admission, she is a little bit of an acting machine.' When
asked to compare the two former child stars, Tennant says:'Drew
Barrymore is very method in her approach to work. She is wildly
passionate and goes with her gut. Jodie always comes to material
first from an intellectual, academic side and she truly acts the
emotion, but it's a job to her.'
Unlike Tatum O'Neal and other child stars of her era, who
ended up in rehab or worse - obscurity, Foster, who was brought
up and guided professionally by her- divorced mother, has survived
and prospered in the movie business for many reasons, not least
because of her acute sense of privacy. She admits that it informs
her character choices. 'My acting is different because I approach it
from a different place than most actors. I'm more interested in the
layers of hiding.' Rob Lowe, who worked with Foster on the 1984
film Hotel New Hampshire, and remains friends with the star,
explains. 'I think that she has learned over the years to protect
herself. And that is a lesson,' he says with more than a touch of irony
punctuated by a giggle, 'that you ignore at your peril.' The truth of
the matter is that Foster has never talked about her relationships
and is rarely photographed around town. 'I really lived my 20s and
then I didn't ever want to go to another club again. I grew out
of it.' When I ask Lowe if he thinks her pursuit of privacy has limited
her life in any way, he says: 'My guess is that it has stopped her from
doing things, but not things that she would want to do.'
Foster says: 'If somebody were to ask what I would do differently,
in a fantasy world I'd have all the respect and I'd have made the
movies that I've made, and just not have to be famous at all. It's the
one thing there's nothing good about. Except getting a really good
table [at a restaurant] occasionally,' she adds mischievously. 'It's not
for any of the obvious reasons, like 'I hate it when people recognize me” or any of that. But you do lose the ability to have pure experience. You have to go out of your way to try and figure out how to keep
living, and not have an assistant live your life while you go to work'.
At a recent Hollywood awards show where Foster was being
honored by her peers, former Academy Award nominee (and one
of Foster's favorite bad boys) James Woods strayed from the
blandly written script when he was supposed to introduce a clip
from Contact. He looked at the audience, which included Foster,
and said: 'How about when I was up in Santa Barbara honoring
her? And my publicist said to me, "Now Jodie takes this very
seriously. Whatever you do, don't talk about the baby and don't
talk about the father. She hates that." So I got up in front of 2,000
people and said, "It's the Lakers [LA's basketball team]. We don't
know which one, but it's the Lakers."' Fortunately for Woods, Foster
got the joke, and while she would rather not tell the world either
who the father of her child is or where he is now, it seems she
doesn't mind being teased about it by James Woods in front of
a huge television audience. 'He [Woods] is my buddy and that's
what I love about him,' she says. 'It's so funny because Jimmy's like that, Mel Gibson’s like that and so is Robert Downey Jnr. The guys that I love are funny, in a really nasty way. With Mel, I laugh so hard. The stupider and the more scatological his jokes are, the happier I am for some reason,’ she grins, letting me see a glimpse of the playfulness her friends have told me about.
Foster’s easy going demeanor turns to one of serious consideration, however, when I ask about the much talked about sequel to Silence of The Lambs. Despite recent reports to the contrary in US press, she insists that she has not turned down the chance to play FBI agent Clarice Starling again. ‘We’re waiting for a script. If the script is great, I think everybody will really want to do it. She pauses for a moment before adding: ‘But I feel like I have a sort of responsibility towards this character. I'm so
proud of her for having been such a hero, that I wouldn't want
to make her do something that she couldn't do.' She seems genuinely
sad that Jonathan Demme has decided not to direct the sequel.
'I think that he, for whatever reasons, decided that this was not the
material that he wanted to direct.'
For someone with a reputation for being so private, Foster is
a surprisingly open interviewee. 'I like reporters and I like the
experience of being able to spend two hours working something out
and thinking about why this means what it means,' she explains.
'It's a little like therapy. But my press has always been geared
towards my professional life. I don't need to promote my own
life.' Nevertheless, she is not averse to talking about her son.
In fact, at the mention of his name, Foster's face lights up. 'He is the
focus of my life. Given the opportunity to deal with him less and
work more, are you kidding? There's no way. That's why I say I don't
have any ambition, but then I haven't had any ambition for a long
time.' She might, she says, even have another child. 'Just not now.'
So how much has Charlie changed her life? 'Somebody was talking about Johnny Depp and he was saying that having a child
has really changed his life. But it hasn't really changed mine
that much because I haven't really gone out to dinner for years.
Now I never go out to dinner, I never see movies and I never travel. My
life is, like, plastic toys - and I mean everywhere. I'm so exhausted
by the end of the evening. People ask why I don't read scripts after
he has fallen asleep and I say, "Well, because I have to pick up
all his shit."' Needless to say, she doesn't have time for a huge
stable of new friends either. 'I've been famous my whole life, but I
probably have the same friends I've had since college. You choose
your friends because you feel safe with them. You choose them
because you trust them.' For the moment, however, it's about work
and Charlie. 'Yeah, he does look a little like me,' she says coyly. 'You
know, his eyes and his chin, his mouth, his hair. And like me, he
doesn't panic; he's really calm, and he's been like that from the
moment he was born. He's unlike me in that he's very cautious.
It's not that he's shy, but he needs to figure stuff out before he
decides what he's going to get involved with. ' She looks up and
grins: 'It's fun being consumed.'
Not surprisingly for the woman for whom the term 'multi-tasking'
was probably invented, Foster has absolutely no problem with
bringing up a son as a single parent. 'There are all sorts of ways
of raising children and none of them is perfect. And the normal
way is not necessarily always the healthy way and that's what it
should be about - the quality of parenting. It shouldn't be about
"how many parents". The ideal of the mother, the father and the
station wagon frankly doesn't really exist in America any more.' As
I walk through the lobby of the Four Seasons, her words rattle
around my head. What Jodie Foster, the star of Anna and the King, seems to be preaching is tolerance of other people's ways of life,
of other people's beliefs - which is just what her new film is about
and, at the end of the day, all she's ever really wanted for herself.
