On Jodie Foster



(image via amybrown)

The Corsair rather likes Jodie Foster. For one, she's ridiculously smart for Tinseltown (Who the fuck majors in Literature nowadays? What does she think she is: An "intellectshual"?). Also, Anna and the King notwithstanding, Jodie Foster has rarely made a cinematic misstep. Third, she's a survivor: Jodie has been high up in the Hollywood firmament since she was a child.

As a survivor of Hollywood from back in the day, she has tales. Until now, she hasn't been open to telling them. Premiere's September 2005 issue changes that. In a remarkably candid interview with Sean Smith, she discusses the Hinkley episode and, more important for our purposes, Bugsy Malone:



(image via amazon)

"Premiere: I'm amazed at how sexualized you were in movies as a kid. Not just in Taxi Driver, but also in The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane and Bugsy Malone. Did it seem weird to you?

Jodie Foster: "No, it didn't. You know, I lived a good girl life. I went to private school. I didn't wear make-up. I didn't take drugs. But I was exposed to all of it. My mom was very liberal and open about things. We'd get ice cream and drive down Hollywood Boulevard: 'Oh look, there's a teenage boy prostitute.' (laughs) So making a movie about those things was sort of like writing a book about them. It doesn't mean you're that way. The reason I was well cast in those movies is that I was not the Hillary Duff type. I was a tough little ... so, like Bugsy Malone, if you put me in hair and costumes, it has a completely different spin. I love that movie."

"Premiere: Bugsy Malone?

Jodie Foster: "Yeah. I don't know if you could get away with that now, with the guns and the boys wearing mustaches and the girls flirting with them. That was the first movie I did with all kids, and it was treacherous. I was the only actor who had acted before, and most of the kids were English, these tough little dancers that they brought in from Manchester and Leeds. It was like going to prison. And I was the girl who hung out with the cute boys, like Scott Baio, so (those girls) hated me.

"They would pull out the fire extinguishers off the walls, and you'd be going down the corridor, and suddenly there'd be like five of them, and they would be like, 'What's the password?' And if you didn't know it, they would (makes sound like the spraying of a fire extinguisher and laughs)

"Premiere: Are there scenes in your movies that unlock specific memories?

Jodie Foster: "Oh yeah. There's a little pot-of-gold moment on every movie -- somebody I was in love with and trying to impress, or a certain moment with an actor. For a scene in Hotel New Hampshire, Rob Lowe and I got to spend the entire day naked in bed, and when everybody went out to eat lunch we ordered in and talked about our lives and played music and laughed and fell asleep. It was such a great little brother-sister moment. I always think about that when I see that movie. "

Later, on the subject of destiny and Tom Cruise:

" ... It's funny, I think destiny is just a fancy word for psychological pattern. I look at Tom Cruise's career and I have a really good sense of this strange destiny that's pushing him. He aspired to the life he has. He planned it. Maybe not the media scrutiny, but I think he wanted to have his own plane. I think the idea of having a billion dollars, to him, is really attractive, because then he can think of ways that he can give it away. My feeling is, why don't I just have, oh, $100 million and then not have to give any of it away. (laughs)"