Jodie Foster has opened up about her upbringing, explaining how she starred in several mature films as a child actor.
The two-time Oscar-winner began her acting career as a child, appearing in various Disney-made films including 1976’s Freaky Friday. Her other early work included the musical comedy film Bugsy Malone, and the coming-of-age drama Foxes.
However, when she became a teenager, she began appearing in films aimed at adult audiences, citing her mother’s concern that her career would end as a reason for this
One of her most memorable roles, for which she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, was as a child prostitute in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 psychological drama Taxi Driver.
Speaking in a new interview with Deadline, Foster opened up about how she landed the role, and her mother’s reasoning for putting her forward for it.
After clarifying that she typically didn’t choose her own roles, Foster said about her mother: “She had ideas for me, maybe a vicarious thrill that she wanted me to be respected.”
The Silence Of The Lambs star continued: “She wanted me to have a career that had a lot of longevity, where I was taken seriously, or because she wasn’t because she came from a pre-feminist era.”
“So there was a lot of, ‘This child, she will be able to do the things that I wasn’t able to do’, and I really benefitted from that,” added Foster.
She described her mother as a “film buff,” saying: “Her taste guided the films I did, she was a big fan of Scorsese, we had seen Mean Streets many times together.”
She continued: “That was what we did – I came home from school and she took me to a movie, especially foreign films.”
Back in January, Foster spoke about her experience working with Scorsese and Robert De Niro on the set of Taxi Driver, describing how she thought they were “scared” of her.
“Yeah, they were a little scared, Scorsese especially, who kept giggling every time he talked to me. He’d start giggling and De Niro had to take over,” she said.