Jodie Foster Steps Back Into The Spotlight
Aug 4, 2012 13:29:41 GMT -5
Post by mario on Aug 4, 2012 13:29:41 GMT -5
marriage, boyfriends, it's about not lying...hm...
[1987]
She has made 23 movies in the past two decades, which makes her a veteran actress at 23 -- a seasoned performer whose career can be broken down into a ``Disney phase,`` a ``Lolita phase`` and currently -- and most impressively -- an adult phase.
A native of Los Angeles, Jodie Foster graduated from Yale University in 1985, specializing in Afro-American literature. After John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate President Reagan in 1981 to impress her, she expressed her horror and confusion in an Esquire piece called ``Why Me?`` Today, this is ancient history for the actress who began her career at age 3 as the original ``Coppertone girl.``
With a slew of new pictures Foster reveals new facets of her talent: In Five Corners (scheduled to open Oct. 14), Tony Bill`s ode to a dying Bronx, she`s a neighborhood belle. In Michael Loughlin`s Mesmerized, a period piece set in New Zealand, she gets rid of an abusive husband by sheer willpower. In Siesta, an Antonioni-esque picture co-starring Ellen Barkin and Julian Sands, she plays a vain upper-class British socialite. And with Reckless Endangerment, Jonathan Kaplan`s study of the complex rapport between a lawyer (Kelly McGillis) and a rape victim (Foster), she may well enter the first rank of America`s screen greats.
It`s a right she has certainly earned.
You once said you wouldn`t do a film that didn`t have a feminist or civil- rights point of view.
Someone said to me, ``You call yourself a feminist and yet you play victims in movies.`` But can you tell me that being a victim is not part of womanhood? If I portray a victim, does that mean I`m not Wonder Woman? Well, I`m not trying to be. There are a lot of ugly things in our history, as in black history -- and the truth has to be told. You can`t censor art through political ``correctness.`` Obviously I wouldn`t do soft-core porn -- it doesn`t interest me. Nor do all those boys` films that have two minutes` worth of girl interest . . . I wouldn`t do anything regressive or repressive or that advocates an old moral regime. Hotel New Hampshire (1984) was condemned for its morality -- or lack of it. Are movies supposed to adhere to a majority ruling? It`s like the Gary Hart thing. Does the presidency really have to do with abstract Judeo-Christian beliefs? I don`t think so.
Have you ever been offered a plum role in a movie you violently disagreed with?
I haven`t. There are a lot of things you weigh, including your convictions. I`d be a production assistant on a movie like Salvador. But you also have to make career choices. It`s kind of like being a revolutionary but sending the other revolutionaries first, because you`re not going to be any use to them if you`re dead. There are a lot of conviction movies to be made, but I`d never work again if I did them. And there may be films I`d be so emotionally sensitive to that I couldn`t do them and take the consequences. They may be great but I would not be able to handle it.
In Reckless Endangerment you have a brutal rape scene.
I couldn`t get out of it. It`s too central. But let me tell you, it was one of the big moments in my life -- and I don`t mean that in a bad way. Jonathan (Kaplan) kept saying, ``I want to take precautions; I want to make sure you`re not upset.`` And I said, ``Take precautions, but I`m going to be upset.`` You don`t do something like that without getting upset, even if you`re the strongest person in the world. I just had to be strong enough to get through it.
Having the experience without really going through it?
I`m not a Method actress -- whatever that is. I never studied, so I don`t tap in on technique. I don`t remember anything about doing that scene. I remember getting on the pinball machine and getting off. Nothing else. I have no idea what I did. I know I hit my cues and my marks but that`s it. It didn`t last for two days or anything. I cried and then I talked to people, but it`s not something you do lightly. And I`m the type who does everything lightly.
I felt so good about what I did! It doesn`t matter if you play a villain and you kill 10 people or you rape -- you`re happy if you do a good job. And I spent a whole week where I couldn`t eat or sleep. I was delirious. I felt that way during this entire film. This is going to be a big one for me.
This time you were ready to confront a scene like that?
Yes. At the time of New Hampshire I don`t think I was strong enough to do it. Although it was a happy set, in a weird way I wasn`t so happy with myself. I don`t think I had the self-confidence to be as uninhibited about my body as I am now. Maybe it`s because I`m older. The best preparation you can do for film is not to go live in the streets and wound yourself, but to do all the things that enable you to look in the mirror and say, ``Yeah, I like myself.`` To be able to look at yourself and really like what you see.
Why were you less self-accepting back then?
I was 19 or 20 and . . . I don`t know. Women are weird. Men start out liking themselves; women have to learn to like themselves. It takes longer for women to be confident and comfortable with themselves. Especially in the movie industry, where you walk into the room and everybody has an opinion. Actually, I take it back: With guys it`s just as tough because they have to go through the same thing and they`re not used to it. Women have had thousands of years of being objects. And you are your own object. A painter can look at his canvas and say, ``I don`t like that,`` and then do it all over again. But if I go on a set and the director says, ``Look how stupid! It`s not real!`` then he`s attacking me -- my body, my face, my gestures, my interpretations of people. It`s tough getting used to.
Do you think growing up without a father has affected your view of men? (Her parents separated before she was born.)
I really don`t have any idea. I don`t miss it, because I never had it. It influenced my ideas about marriage, definitely, and about what I want from marriage. Girls from single-parent homes really want to get married. I do. I believe in marriage. I think even at its worst it`s worth it -- something to go through.
When you look back on your career, what comes to mind?
I worked hard and long on a lot of things I`m not embarrassed about. They weren`t of the highest quality but I had to make the most of them. It really teaches you to be humble. Some people get quick breaks and declare, ``I`ll never do commercials! That`s so lowbrow!`` I want to tell them, ``Well, I`m real glad you`ve got a pretty face, because I worked for 20 years doing that stuff and I feel it`s really invaluable; it really taught me a lot.``
When you were making commercials did you feel you were learning, or is this in retrospect?
I loved every minute of working as a kid. If I had to do those commercials now, I`d be mortified, but when you`re a kid you don`t care if you make a fool of yourself. It sets you up for being uninhibited when you`re grown up. I`m very lucky to have worked as a kid. A lot of 21-year-olds who get their first break are under extreme pressure because they don`t have the experience. You can`t just go home and act. At least I can`t. Maybe you do for a couple of years and then a picture like Reckless comes along and reminds you.
Kelly (McGillis) and I were talking the other day about the two greatest lines that boyfriends always tell you. The first is, ``You`re an actress; how can I ever trust you when you say this? You could be lying. You`re good at it!`` The ironic thing is, precisely because I`m an actress, when I`m up there I never lie. What it`s about is not lying, but sincerity and absolute conviction about what you`re saying. The other big one is, ``You went to college and you think you know everything.`` The answer to that is, ``I went to college and now I know I don`t know anything!`` When I was in high school I thought I had it all figured out.
How did college affect your feelings about actors?
I always thought all actors were stupid, and I thought if I went to college I wouldn`t be a stupid actor. But I realized what I really wanted to do was to act and there was nothing stupid about it. It`s like going to another country -- you learn about chopsticks and all that, but what you really learn is about yourself.
What about Five Corners?
It`s a great film. It`s about a neighborhood over a period of 36 hours in the `60s and the events that happen to all kinds of characters who connect one evening. I play a together girl in the Bronx, who has a boyfriend but is terrorized by this big dummy who has been in jail and is completely obsessed with her. He decides to take her away. I get knocked over the head and carried around unconscious in John Turturro`s arms for about 40 percent of the movie. Very King Kong.
And Reckless Endangerment?
The film is about the relationship between a high-powered young deputy district attorney (McGillis) who is living in a man`s world, and her client, who is the victim of a very brutal gang rape. It`s about how they change each other`s prejudices and problems. Kelly`s character is terribly cold and aloof, denying her own femininity and maybe embarrassed by it, and she looks down on this trashy girl who`s all the things she`s tried to escape. What she learns is to embrace that because it`s part of who she is, and that there`s more to life than winning a case. And my character repossesses her will by telling her story, by being able to testify. She lives in a trailer and has a day job and moves from boyfriend to boyfriend. Kelly`s character inspires a hope in her that she can achieve something better. They discover wholeness only through each other. Each of them is cut off from something the other possesses, and by becoming intimate and having someone care they become whole. It`s the self- affirmation of the other in the mirror. You`re my mirror and you`re beautiful, then so am I.
[1987]
She has made 23 movies in the past two decades, which makes her a veteran actress at 23 -- a seasoned performer whose career can be broken down into a ``Disney phase,`` a ``Lolita phase`` and currently -- and most impressively -- an adult phase.
A native of Los Angeles, Jodie Foster graduated from Yale University in 1985, specializing in Afro-American literature. After John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate President Reagan in 1981 to impress her, she expressed her horror and confusion in an Esquire piece called ``Why Me?`` Today, this is ancient history for the actress who began her career at age 3 as the original ``Coppertone girl.``
With a slew of new pictures Foster reveals new facets of her talent: In Five Corners (scheduled to open Oct. 14), Tony Bill`s ode to a dying Bronx, she`s a neighborhood belle. In Michael Loughlin`s Mesmerized, a period piece set in New Zealand, she gets rid of an abusive husband by sheer willpower. In Siesta, an Antonioni-esque picture co-starring Ellen Barkin and Julian Sands, she plays a vain upper-class British socialite. And with Reckless Endangerment, Jonathan Kaplan`s study of the complex rapport between a lawyer (Kelly McGillis) and a rape victim (Foster), she may well enter the first rank of America`s screen greats.
It`s a right she has certainly earned.
You once said you wouldn`t do a film that didn`t have a feminist or civil- rights point of view.
Someone said to me, ``You call yourself a feminist and yet you play victims in movies.`` But can you tell me that being a victim is not part of womanhood? If I portray a victim, does that mean I`m not Wonder Woman? Well, I`m not trying to be. There are a lot of ugly things in our history, as in black history -- and the truth has to be told. You can`t censor art through political ``correctness.`` Obviously I wouldn`t do soft-core porn -- it doesn`t interest me. Nor do all those boys` films that have two minutes` worth of girl interest . . . I wouldn`t do anything regressive or repressive or that advocates an old moral regime. Hotel New Hampshire (1984) was condemned for its morality -- or lack of it. Are movies supposed to adhere to a majority ruling? It`s like the Gary Hart thing. Does the presidency really have to do with abstract Judeo-Christian beliefs? I don`t think so.
Have you ever been offered a plum role in a movie you violently disagreed with?
I haven`t. There are a lot of things you weigh, including your convictions. I`d be a production assistant on a movie like Salvador. But you also have to make career choices. It`s kind of like being a revolutionary but sending the other revolutionaries first, because you`re not going to be any use to them if you`re dead. There are a lot of conviction movies to be made, but I`d never work again if I did them. And there may be films I`d be so emotionally sensitive to that I couldn`t do them and take the consequences. They may be great but I would not be able to handle it.
In Reckless Endangerment you have a brutal rape scene.
I couldn`t get out of it. It`s too central. But let me tell you, it was one of the big moments in my life -- and I don`t mean that in a bad way. Jonathan (Kaplan) kept saying, ``I want to take precautions; I want to make sure you`re not upset.`` And I said, ``Take precautions, but I`m going to be upset.`` You don`t do something like that without getting upset, even if you`re the strongest person in the world. I just had to be strong enough to get through it.
Having the experience without really going through it?
I`m not a Method actress -- whatever that is. I never studied, so I don`t tap in on technique. I don`t remember anything about doing that scene. I remember getting on the pinball machine and getting off. Nothing else. I have no idea what I did. I know I hit my cues and my marks but that`s it. It didn`t last for two days or anything. I cried and then I talked to people, but it`s not something you do lightly. And I`m the type who does everything lightly.
I felt so good about what I did! It doesn`t matter if you play a villain and you kill 10 people or you rape -- you`re happy if you do a good job. And I spent a whole week where I couldn`t eat or sleep. I was delirious. I felt that way during this entire film. This is going to be a big one for me.
This time you were ready to confront a scene like that?
Yes. At the time of New Hampshire I don`t think I was strong enough to do it. Although it was a happy set, in a weird way I wasn`t so happy with myself. I don`t think I had the self-confidence to be as uninhibited about my body as I am now. Maybe it`s because I`m older. The best preparation you can do for film is not to go live in the streets and wound yourself, but to do all the things that enable you to look in the mirror and say, ``Yeah, I like myself.`` To be able to look at yourself and really like what you see.
Why were you less self-accepting back then?
I was 19 or 20 and . . . I don`t know. Women are weird. Men start out liking themselves; women have to learn to like themselves. It takes longer for women to be confident and comfortable with themselves. Especially in the movie industry, where you walk into the room and everybody has an opinion. Actually, I take it back: With guys it`s just as tough because they have to go through the same thing and they`re not used to it. Women have had thousands of years of being objects. And you are your own object. A painter can look at his canvas and say, ``I don`t like that,`` and then do it all over again. But if I go on a set and the director says, ``Look how stupid! It`s not real!`` then he`s attacking me -- my body, my face, my gestures, my interpretations of people. It`s tough getting used to.
Do you think growing up without a father has affected your view of men? (Her parents separated before she was born.)
I really don`t have any idea. I don`t miss it, because I never had it. It influenced my ideas about marriage, definitely, and about what I want from marriage. Girls from single-parent homes really want to get married. I do. I believe in marriage. I think even at its worst it`s worth it -- something to go through.
When you look back on your career, what comes to mind?
I worked hard and long on a lot of things I`m not embarrassed about. They weren`t of the highest quality but I had to make the most of them. It really teaches you to be humble. Some people get quick breaks and declare, ``I`ll never do commercials! That`s so lowbrow!`` I want to tell them, ``Well, I`m real glad you`ve got a pretty face, because I worked for 20 years doing that stuff and I feel it`s really invaluable; it really taught me a lot.``
When you were making commercials did you feel you were learning, or is this in retrospect?
I loved every minute of working as a kid. If I had to do those commercials now, I`d be mortified, but when you`re a kid you don`t care if you make a fool of yourself. It sets you up for being uninhibited when you`re grown up. I`m very lucky to have worked as a kid. A lot of 21-year-olds who get their first break are under extreme pressure because they don`t have the experience. You can`t just go home and act. At least I can`t. Maybe you do for a couple of years and then a picture like Reckless comes along and reminds you.
Kelly (McGillis) and I were talking the other day about the two greatest lines that boyfriends always tell you. The first is, ``You`re an actress; how can I ever trust you when you say this? You could be lying. You`re good at it!`` The ironic thing is, precisely because I`m an actress, when I`m up there I never lie. What it`s about is not lying, but sincerity and absolute conviction about what you`re saying. The other big one is, ``You went to college and you think you know everything.`` The answer to that is, ``I went to college and now I know I don`t know anything!`` When I was in high school I thought I had it all figured out.
How did college affect your feelings about actors?
I always thought all actors were stupid, and I thought if I went to college I wouldn`t be a stupid actor. But I realized what I really wanted to do was to act and there was nothing stupid about it. It`s like going to another country -- you learn about chopsticks and all that, but what you really learn is about yourself.
What about Five Corners?
It`s a great film. It`s about a neighborhood over a period of 36 hours in the `60s and the events that happen to all kinds of characters who connect one evening. I play a together girl in the Bronx, who has a boyfriend but is terrorized by this big dummy who has been in jail and is completely obsessed with her. He decides to take her away. I get knocked over the head and carried around unconscious in John Turturro`s arms for about 40 percent of the movie. Very King Kong.
And Reckless Endangerment?
The film is about the relationship between a high-powered young deputy district attorney (McGillis) who is living in a man`s world, and her client, who is the victim of a very brutal gang rape. It`s about how they change each other`s prejudices and problems. Kelly`s character is terribly cold and aloof, denying her own femininity and maybe embarrassed by it, and she looks down on this trashy girl who`s all the things she`s tried to escape. What she learns is to embrace that because it`s part of who she is, and that there`s more to life than winning a case. And my character repossesses her will by telling her story, by being able to testify. She lives in a trailer and has a day job and moves from boyfriend to boyfriend. Kelly`s character inspires a hope in her that she can achieve something better. They discover wholeness only through each other. Each of them is cut off from something the other possesses, and by becoming intimate and having someone care they become whole. It`s the self- affirmation of the other in the mirror. You`re my mirror and you`re beautiful, then so am I.
