Jodie Foster has spoken about her admiration for The Last Of Us star Bella Ramsey, and revealed why she insisted on having the 20-year-old actor introduce her at Elle’s Women in Hollywood event.
Foster, who stars in the fourth season of True Detective, has shared in a new interview that she often reaches out to young actresses on the brink of super-stardom to offer them the support that she often longed for in her earlier years of fame.
Most recently, the Nyad star got in touch with non-binary actor Bella Ramsey, who skyrocketed to fame after starring in the TV adaption of The Last Of Us as Ellie.
Foster suggested to The Guardian that she sees some of herself in Ramsey, who appears perfectly comfortable in their gender identity and individuality despite having the world’s eyes on them.
The Silence of the Lambs actress, who has appeared on TV since she was three years old, saw Ramsey as a brilliant role model and felt compelled to reach out to them ahead of Elle’s Women In Hollywood event last month.
Foster recalled: “I reached out to Bella, because we’d never met, and said, ‘I want you to introduce me at this thing’, which is a wonderful event about actors and people in the movies, but is also very much a fashion thing. Which means it’s determining who represents us.
“[The organisers] are very proud of themselves because they’ve got every ethnicity, and I’m like, yeah, but all the attendees are still wearing heels and eyelashes. There are other ways of being a woman, and it’s really important for people to see that.
“And Bella, who gave the best speech, was wearing the most perfect suit, beautifully tailored, and a middle parting and no makeup.”
Foster admitted that seeing Ramsey be so confidently themselves from such a young age made her feel sympathy toward her younger self, who was plagued with questions about her sexuality throughout her career.
Last year, during a press run for The Last Of Us, Ramsey came out as non-binary. In a follow-up interview with British Vogue, they explained that they/them pronouns feel “the most truthful” to them in terms of their gender identity.
“You never fully know who you are, it’s ever-evolving,” said Ramsey at the time.
“But I certainly think that people have gathered that I’m not 100 per cent straight. I’m a little bit wavy, you know? That’s what I like to say.”
Foster, who has been married to photographer Alexandra Hedison since 2014, was stalked by questions and whispers about her sexuality for years, despite her pleas for the media to respect her privacy.
Asked if she could have made like Ramsey and worn a suit with no makeup and a sharp middle parting at a major Hollywood event when she was an up-and-coming actress, Foster said: “No. Because we weren’t free. Because we didn’t have freedom.
“And hopefully that’s what the vector of authenticity that’s happening offers – the possibility of real freedom. We had other things that were good. And I would say: I did the best I could for my generation.
“I was very busy understanding where I fitted in and where I wanted to be in terms of feminism. But my lens wasn’t wide enough. I lived in an incredibly segregated world.”
