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Jodie Foster
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Alicia Christian Foster, better known as Jodie Foster (born November 19, 1962), is a two-time Academy Award, BAFTA, and Golden Globe-award winning and Emmy-nominated American actor, director and producer.
Although Foster's first acting appearance was at three years old, her first significant role came in 1976's Taxi Driver as the preteen prostitute, Iris, for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
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Alicia Christian Foster, better known as Jodie Foster (born November 19, 1962), is a two-time Academy Award, BAFTA, and Golden Globe-award winning and Emmy-nominated American actor, director and producer.
Although Foster's first acting appearance was at three years old, her first significant role came in 1976's Taxi Driver as the preteen prostitute, Iris, for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She won an Oscar for Best Actress in 1989 for playing a rape survivor in The Accused. In 1991, she starred in The Silence of the Lambs as Clarice Starling, a gifted FBI trainee, assisting in a hunt for a serial killer. This performance received international acclaim and her second Oscar for Best Actress. She received her fourth Oscar nomination for playing a hermit in Nell (1994). Her films and roles have spanned a wide variety of genres, including thrillers, crime, horror, romance, comedy, children's films and science fiction. Popular later films include the box office successes Contact (1997), Panic Room (2002), Flightplan (2005), Inside Man (2006) and The Brave One (2007).
Early life
Foster was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Evelyn 'Brandy' Ella (née Almond) and Lucius Fisher Foster III. Her father, an Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel (a veteran of the Battle of Britain and a highly decorated airman) turned real estate broker, came from a wealthy background and left his wife before Jodie was born. Foster's mother supported them by working as a film producer. After appearing as a child in several commercials, Foster made her first credited TV appearance on The Doris Day Show. Her first film role was in the 1970 television movie Menace on the Mountain, which was followed by several Disney productions.
Foster attended a French-speaking prep school, the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, and graduated in 1980 as the valedictorian. As a teenager, Foster frequently stayed and worked in France, and still speaks the language, dubbing herself in French-language versions of most of her films. She then attended Yale University. Foster earned a B.A. in literature and graduated magna cum laude in 1985. She was scheduled to graduate in 1984 but the shooting of then-President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley, Jr., in which Hinckley's fascination with Foster created unwanted adverse publicity for her, caused her to take a year-long leave of absence from Yale. She is fluent in French and German.
Career
Child star
Foster made nearly 50 film and television appearances before she attended college. She began her career at age three as a Coppertone Girl in a television commercial and debuted as a television actress in a 1968 episode of Mayberry R.F.D. In 1969, she appeared in an episode of Gunsmoke, where she was credited as "Jody Foster". Although not a regular on The Courtship of Eddie's Father, she appeared from time to time as Eddie's friend Joey Kelly. She made her film debut in the 1970 TV movie Menace on the Mountain. She was featured as Tallulah in Bugsy Malone in 1976. Foster made a number of Disney movies, including Napoleon and Samantha (1972), One Little Indian (1973), Freaky Friday (1976), and Candleshoe (1977). She also co-starred with Christopher Connelly in the 1974 TV series version of Paper Moon and alongside Martin Sheen in the 1976 cult film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. As a teenager, Foster made several appearances on the French pop music circuit as a singer. Commenting on her years as a child actress, which she describes as an "actor's career", Foster has said that "it was very clear to me at a young age that I had to fight for my life and that if I didn't, my life would get gobbled up and taken away from me." She hosted Saturday Night Live at age 14, making her the youngest person to host at that time until Drew Barrymore hosted at the age of seven. She also said,
"I think all of us when we look back on our childhood, we always think of it as somebody else. It's just a completely different place. But I was lucky to be around in the '70s and to really be making movies in the '70s with some great filmmakers — the most exciting time, for me, in American Cinema. I learned a lot from some very interesting artists -- and I learned a lot about the business at a young age, because, for whatever reason, I was paying attention; so it was kind of invaluable in my career."
Foster was originally considered for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, but was unable to pull out of her contract with Disney. She made her debut (and only official) musical recordings in France in 1977: two 7" singles, "Je T'attends Depuis la Nuit des Temps" b/w "La Vie C'est Chouette"and "When I Looked at Your Face" b/w "La Vie C'est Chouette." The A-side of the former is sung in French, the A-side of the latter in English. The B-side of both is mostly spoken word and is performed in both French and English. These three recordings were included on the soundtrack to Foster's 1977 French film Moi, fleur bleue.
At age 14, Foster was nominated for the Academy Award For Best Supporting Actress for her role as Iris, an underage prostitute in Martin Scorsese's film Taxi Driver opposite Robert De Niro. Foster received two BAFTA awards in 1976: Best Newcomer and Best Supporting Actress for her performances in Bugsy Malone and Taxi Driver.
Reagan assassination attempt
John Hinckley Jr. became obsessed with Foster after watching Taxi Driver a number of times, and he stalked her while she attended Yale, sending her love letters to her campus mail box and even talking to her on the phone. On March 30, 1981, he attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan (shooting and wounding Reagan and three others) and claimed his motive was to impress Foster, then a Yale freshman. The media stormed the Yale campus in April "like a cavalry invasion," and followed Foster relentlessly. In 1982, Foster was called to testify during his trial. After she responded to a question by saying that "I don't have any relationship with John Hinckley," Hinckley threw a pen at her and yelled "I'll get you, Foster!" Hinckley's obsession inspired a punk rock band to name themselves Jodie Foster's Army.
Another man, Edward Richardson, followed Foster around Yale and planned to shoot her, but decided against it because she "was too pretty." This all caused intense discomfort to Foster, who has been known to walk out of interviews if Hinckley's name is even mentioned. In 1991, Foster cancelled an interview with NBC's Today Show when she was told Hinckley's name would be mentioned in her introduction. Foster's only public reactions to this were a press conference afterwards and an article entitled "Why Me?", which she wrote for Esquire in December 1982. In 1999, she discussed the experience with Charlie Rose of 60 Minutes II.
Adult career
Unlike other child stars such as Shirley Temple or Tatum O'Neal, Foster successfully made the transition to adult roles, but not without initial difficulty. Several of her post-Taxi Driver works were financially unsuccessful, such as Foxes, The Hotel New Hampshire, Five Corners, and Stealing Home. She had to audition for her role in The Accused. She won the part and the first of her two Golden Globes and Academy Awards as Best Actress for her role as a rape survivor. She earned her second for her role as FBI trainee Clarice Starling, opposite Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs.
She made her directorial debut in 1991 with Little Man Tate, a critically acclaimed drama about a child prodigy, in which she also co-starred as the child's mother. She also directed Home for the Holidays (1995), a black comedy starring Holly Hunter and Robert Downey Jr. In 1992, Foster founded a production company called Egg Pictures in Los Angeles. It primarily produced independent films until it was closed in 2001. Foster said that she did not have the ambition to produce "big mainstream popcorn" movies, and as a child, independent films made her more interested in the movie business than mainstream ones. She began working as a producer in 1994 with the acclaimed Nell, the story of a young woman raised in an isolated place who has to return to civilization. Her performance in the film earned her a fourth Academy Award nomination, for Best Actress. She also won a Screen Actors Guild Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in the film. She later commented that it was difficult being an actress and a producer for Nell.
Foster played Laurel Sommersby in Sommersby and Annabelle Bransford in the 1994 film Maverick. Sommersby co-star Richard Gere would comment that "She's very much a close-up actress, because her thoughts are clear." In 1997, she starred alongside Matthew McConaughey in the sci-fi movie Contact, based on the novel by scientist Carl Sagan. She portrayed a scientist searching for extraterrestrial life in the SETI project. She commented on the script that "I have to have some acute personal connection with the material. And that's pretty hard for me to find." Contact was also her first science fiction film, and her first experience with a bluescreen. She commented,
"Blue walls, blue roof. It was just blue, blue, blue. And I was rotated on a lazy Susan with the camera moving on a computerized arm. It was really tough."
In 1998, an asteroid, 17744 Jodiefoster, was named in her honor.
In 2002, Foster took over the lead role in David Fincher's Panic Room after Nicole Kidman dropped out due to a previous injury. The film grossed over $30 million in its opening weekend in the United States, Foster's biggest box office opening success of her career so far. She then performed in the French-language film Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement) (2004), speaking French fluently throughout. Foster returned in the 2005 film Flightplan which opened once again #1 at the U.S. box office and was a worldwide hit. Foster portrayed a woman whose daughter disappears on an airplane that her character, an engineer, had helped to design.
In 2006, she appeared in Inside Man, a thriller directed by Spike Lee and co-starring Denzel Washington and Clive Owen, which opened #1 at the U.S. box office and went on to be one of the commercial hits of the year. In 2008, she starred in The Brave One directed by Neil Jordan and co-starring Terrence Howard, another urban thriller that opened at #1 at the U.S. box office Foster's performance in the film would earn her a sixth Golden Globe acting nomination. Commenting on her latest roles, Foster has said that she enjoys appearing in mainstream genre films that have a "real heart to them". Indeed, many of her most successful films in recent years have been thrillers.
Current projects
Foster was set to direct, as well as reunite with actor Robert De Niro, for the film Sugarland. The film was shelved indefinitely in 2007, however. In 2008, Foster starred in Nim's Island, portraying a reclusive writer who is contacted by a young girl after her father goes missing at sea. The part of Nim is played by Abigail Breslin. Nim's Island is the first comedy that Foster has starred in since Maverick in 1994. Foster is currently developing a biopic of Leni Riefenstahl.
Personal life
Foster says she has only met her father three times in her entire life and that their meetings have been very awkward. She has two older sisters, Lucinda "Cindy" Foster (b. 1954), Constance "Connie" Foster (b. 1955), and an older brother, Lucius "Buddy" Foster (b. 1957). During the filming of both Taxi Driver and The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, Connie was her stand-in. Buddy Foster had his own career for several years appearing in regular spots on television shows such as Hondo and Mayberry, R.F.D. Foster and her brother have been estranged for many years. In 1997, he wrote a book entitled Foster Child in which stated "I have always assumed Jodie was gay or bisexual." In the book, he writes that she was conceived in her father's office three years after their parents divorced when their mother went to him for child support. He also claims that her name was changed from "Alicia" to "Jodie" because it was a code "Jo D" for their mother's lesbian lover, Josephina Dominguez. Jodie Foster called the book: "A cheap cry for attention and money filled with hazy recollections, fantasies and borrowed press releases. Buddy has done nothing but break our mother's heart his whole life".
Foster is intensely private about certain aspects of her personal life, notably her sexual orientation, which has been the subject of speculation. In her teens, she dated actor Scott Baio, her costar in Bugsy Malone and Foxes. In July 2007, Baio told Entertainment Weekly that he and Foster would make out on the set. In an interview in 2005, Foster said for a scene with Rob Lowe on the set of The Hotel New Hampshire, they "got to spend the entire day naked in bed, and when everyone went out to eat lunch we ordered in and talked about our lives and played music and laughed and fell asleep." Foster described this as a "brother-sister moment." At the 1989 Academy Awards Ceremony, Foster was seen kissing Julian Sands, her costar in Siesta. For years, Russell Crowe accompanied her to premieres and award ceremonies, but they never commented on the rumor that they were romantically involved.
Foster has two sons: Charles Foster (b. July 20, 1998) and Christopher "Kit" Foster (b. September 29, 2001). Foster gave birth to both children, but has not revealed the identity of the children's father(s) or the specifics of their conception.
In December 2007, Foster made headlines when, during an acceptance speech at Hollywood Reporter's "Women in Entertainment" event, she paid tribute to film producer Cydney Bernard, referring to her as "my beautiful Cydney, who sticks with me through the rotten and the bliss." Some media interpreted this as Foster coming out, as Bernard was believed to be her girlfriend since both met in 1992 during the filming of Sommersby. Foster and Bernard never attended premieres or award ceremonies together, but were often seen walking with Foster's children in public. On May 15, 2008, several news outlets reported that Foster and Bernard had "called it quits."
Foster is an atheist and does not follow any "traditional religion." She has discussed the god of the gaps. Foster has "great respect for all religions" and spends "a lot of time studying divine texts, whether it's Eastern religion or Western religion." She and her children celebrate both Christmas and Hannukah. Some sources claim that Foster is a member of Mensa, however Foster herself denied that she is a member in an interview on Italian TV network RAI.
Filmography
Actress
Producer
Director
External links
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Southeastern Film Critics Association Award
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