While some people spend their childhoods daydreaming about becoming movie stars, Jodie Foster was experiencing this as reality from an early age. She began acting in adverts as a child before appearing in television shows like The Doris Day Show, Gunsmoke, and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.
As her career progressed, she starred in a mixture of Disney movies like One Little Indian and Freaky Friday alongside more mature roles in films such as Taxi Driver and Bugsy Malone. It was rather obvious from the start that Foster was destined for stardom, impressing critics with her performances, which possessed a level of complexity that many actors struggle to find until later in their careers.
Yet, Foster has always been incredibly good at her job, taking on a wide range of roles that prove her versatility. Earning her first Oscar nomination at the age of 12 for portraying a child prostitute in Taxi Driver, Foster went on to earn two ‘Best Actress’ Academy Awards three years apart, with the first win for The Accused and the second for The Silence of the Lambs. Playing Clarice Starling in the latter, Foster became even more widely known in Hollywood, allowing her to continue landing challenging roles.
In 1994, she was nominated for yet another Academy Award, this time for the movie Nell. Directed by Michael Apted, the film proved to be a difficult one for Foster to prepare for, and while she didn’t win the Oscar (she lost out to Jessica Lange for Blue Sky), it still remains one of her most impressive performances. Foster played the titular character, who is exposed to people and the outside world for the first time after growing up remotely – her only form of interaction with her mother.
Frightened by those who find her after her mother dies, Nell must adjust to normal life despite the fact that she speaks her own made-up language. To embody a role so full of fear and difference compared to your average human, Foster had to work hard to portray her character with depth and realism.
Talking to the New York Times, Foster revealed that playing the character was a “turning point” in her career, which helped her to more greatly understand herself and her job as an actor. She revealed that her normal approach to preparing for a role just wasn’t cutting it this time around: “That was a turning point for me, the most challenging role I had ever done. I didn’t know that I had the skills to do it. I tried to do research. The research didn’t work.”
She continued, “Everything that you would normally do to prepare was useless. And that was great, because I realised that everything that I needed to know, I already knew. I didn’t realise that I had that in me. I had to open up and be vulnerable. Which to me was like, I’m not sure I know how to do that. I didn’t become an actor because I’m this vulnerable person who wants to feel all the time. I’m not that person, and I was scared. I recognise that that’s my failing as a human being.”
So, while Foster found the role difficult, her hard work proved to be incredibly fruitful, not only earning her an Oscar nomination but also allowing her to connect with herself better.
