«SI’m a completely different person when I act in French: more nervous, not being able to express myself as I would like; more vulnerable; more sensitive. Always on alert (if someone changes a word, I have to be able to respond), I get nervous, I have less confidence in myself, less security.” Jodie Fostera global and intergenerational star, now allows himself to let his guard down. A strong woman on screen and in reality, with a career spanning 60 years (she started when she was just 3), she has no problem admitting the fragilities triggered by her role in Privacy Of Rebecca Zlotowski. In the film – part psychological thriller, part comedy, in theaters from December 11th – embodies Lilian Steiner, a psychoanalyst who investigates the alleged suicide of a patient, aided by her ex-husband (Daniel Auteuil).
“I can’t cry”
«And it’s not a language problem: I speak it well» he specifies. No doubt, given her mother’s Francophilia (she raised her on the masterpieces of François Truffaut and Louis Malle) and her attendance at the Lycée Français in Los Angeles. The first sensational proof of his mastery? At the Cannes Film Festival, in 1976: at the press conference of Taxi Driver she improvised as a translator for Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, continuing to entertain the press – she, a teenager – while the two adults remained barricaded in the room fearing negative criticism…
«For some time I had hoped to film in France as the protagonist (in the past I had had three small parts). When this script arrived, I had no doubts: there is the introspection typical of European cinema (the subtleties, the intelligence) and the narrative dynamism typical of American cinema. As well as a nice dose of humour.”
His psychoanalyst has a problem: she can’t cry.
I’m not one to cry either, except when I watch movies: there, yes, I exaggerate. But in everyday life… I don’t know what happens to me. My mother said I was like that since I was little. And someone – it wasn’t my choice – saw fit to make me become an actress! (laughs) It’s a kind of cruel joke for a woman: in the script it says “she cries”, and I can’t! I had to learn to access a part of me that isn’t natural.
The last time you were moved?
A series with terminally ill Michelle Williams is called Dying for Sex. And the series Adolescence.
Jodie Foster with Daniel Auteuil in Private Life by Rebecca Zlotowski, in cinemas from 11 December.
“Irreparable relationships”
The aspects of Privacy who touched you in particular?
First of all, having two boys (Charlie and Kit, 27 and 24 years old, born at the time of the relationship with the producer Cydney Bernard, ed), I loved exploring the bond between a mother and an adult son. Because it’s ambivalent: you carry it in your body and then you have to let it go, watch it become a man. Extraordinary, and difficult. There is an almost romantic relationship when the children are small but, at a certain point, they have to move away from you, make mistakes… And in the end, luckily, we find each other again, in such a profound way! It’s different between mothers and daughters: we hate each other, we challenge each other as much as possible. And those relationships are often not repaired as adults.
Here she is in Private Life as a psychoanalyst with the “patient” Virginie Efira.
Jodie Foster and children
She called her children “super feminists.”
Oh yes! They were raised by women! So, for them, “women” means “people who are the bosses”! They both have wonderful relationships with extraordinary partners: very strong, very intelligent. They are affectionate and playful together, completely equal. They admire their classmates so much and keep bragging about them, like: “She’s fantastic! Isn’t she incredible?”. (smiles)
Jodie Foster with sons Kit and Charles (Photo by Michael Buckner/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images)
Girlfriends will feel intimidated by a mother-in-law like her.
No, I don’t think so! Oh my… I love having grown up kids! I didn’t know I would feel this way. Phew! A huge weight lifted from my shoulders. They have always done well in school, attended excellent universities and found joy in learning. I’m really proud of it!
There’s more that attracted her to the plot of Privacy?
Reflection on obsessions. When we are obsessed with something – my Lilian is obsessed with a mysterious death, but the same goes for those who set themselves the goal: “I want to find out everything about Napoleon” or “About my mother” – apparently these are investigations aimed outside yourself, but in reality they concern us, an internal problem, a deep knot that we are trying to explore. In this film the twist is not finding out who killed, but the fact that the psychoanalyst finally – after twenty years! – be able to ask your ex-husband: “Why did you leave me? Tell me the real reason.”
“The turning point”
And he reminds her how focused she was on herself. Does this happen to you?
Absolutely: my entire youth, from zero to fifty, was focused only on me! (laughs) Children are a watershed. When you find yourself awake at three in the morning wondering, “Will they be loved? Will they find a career that fulfills them?”, you realize, “Wow! There’s a world out there, and I didn’t realize it!” In my fifties there was a lot of unhappiness: “Am I on the right path? Have I done anything significant?”. I wasn’t having fun anymore, I struggled to understand where I was, what to do. It’s hard for any woman, honestly. It’s a strange transition: you wonder if you should compete with your younger self, appear in magazines, wear makeup, try to look like you did in your twenties. No, you can’t and, at the same time, you are not yet “old”.
Jodie Foster in Cannes this year (photo Getty Images)
It’s different for men…
For them yes! At that age they have the best time, right?
The turning point?
When I turned 60, I said to myself: “You know what? I don’t care anymore!”. I acquired a form of freedom and I started looking at others, my colleagues, their stories, asking myself: “How can I help them tell them? How can I be of support?”. Something big happened, and I’m not sure how to explain it. As if a hormone had been released in my body. In my fifties I was full of anxiety, the day I turned sixty I noticed: “Oh, I’m fine!”. I was serene, happy, no longer afraid, with a spirit of acceptance. And the desire to act returned to me.
The curse of being a prodigy
Jodie Foster with Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese on the set of Taxi Driver, 1976 (photo Corbis)
He announced his intention to retire during a speech at the Golden Globes…
Yes! But that’s how I do it, I’ve always done it. I get to a point where I give up: “I can’t take it anymore!”. I even went four or five years without acting.
Jodie Foster in True Detective
Has the way you choose roles changed?
Yes. When you are twenty or thirty years old and your work is released in 4,000 theaters, you want to be “excellent”, and “excellent” means having the greatest possible success, the highest gross, touching the greatest number of spectators with your work. Which, inevitably, brings a lot of pressure. And – what is not secondary – you are not allowed to tell your truth: you have to tell “that” story, you have to be the heroine of the journey. As a young girl, playing an investigator like that of True Detective (wearing a uniform, being tough, racist) would not have been allowed. And, anyway, it was important for me to be the heroine then.
Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins with their Oscars won for The Silence of the Lambs (photo Getty Images)
Why?
Women had to be content with embodying the hero’s sister, the hero’s wife, the hero’s girlfriend, the hero’s muse… Consequently in that period it was essential to insist: “No, I want to be the hero!”.
She went further, she became a director. In 1991 he debuted with Little Man Tate, My little geniusabout the difficulties of being gifted.
Yes, a curse.
A curse, not a blessing?
Both. That film was quite autobiographical: it’s about a child with extraordinary intelligence who finds himself torn between his mother and a psychologist who wants to increase his potential. The story is different from mine, but the pressure and curse of being different are the ones I grew up with. Torn between two directions: on the one hand intellect, on the other emotional sensitivity, the ability to see inside the soul in a way that is almost inappropriate for her age. This is 100 percent who I am, it has been the story of my existence.
“Beautiful and painful”
Are these two forces still fighting?
The attempt to reconcile them was beautiful and painful but, deep down, I feel that this will remain my eternal struggle. Partly it comes from my history, from having to have “compartments” to protect myself, having been a public figure since I was five or six. I had to keep myself healthy and safe.
Directions in sight?
I would like it, but only on my terms. I don’t need to be the most famous director or the best or the most applauded. My ambition is modest: to dedicate myself to subjects that express myself. But now it’s difficult to make personal films. Money Monster-The other side of moneythe last one I directed, was tough: it was the first time I had two stars in the cast (George Clooney and Julia Roberts, ed), and that I had a big studio as my distributor. As enjoyable as the experience itself was, and it went well, I never want to direct anything again mainstream American. As an actress yes, I can accept, but as a director no. It’s my form of activism.
In what sense?
All I can do for society, being an artist, is to propose works that encourage people to be better, to reflect deeply, to feel intensely.
Privacy it also talks about reincarnation. Do you believe it?
I am skeptical, rational: I believe in science. But I also believe that there is a lot of science that we don’t understand, that we don’t know and perhaps we will never know. In the Middle Ages they were convinced that birds were angels because they flew, today we know why they fly…