Jodie Foster admits she found Robert De Niro “really uninteresting” when they first met on set of ‘Taxi Driver’
Meeting your heroes at any age is a terrifying ordeal, but Jodie Foster came across world-renowned actor Robert De Niro at the tender age of 12 years old. Despite her youth, she wasn’t impressed with the star on their first (or second) meeting.
While chatting at the Marrakech Film Festival, The Silence of the Lambs actor reflected on her entire career and began reminiscing about her work on the 1976 Martin Scorsese film, Taxi Driver.
Foster played the problematic role of a child sex worker in the movie, while De Niro starred as a Vietnam veteran facing mental health issues.
Reminiscing on the behind-the-scenes reality of it, she told the audience, “We’d run the lines and run the lines a second and third time. And I’m sure maybe some of you have been here when Robert De Niro was here. One of our greatest American actors, so proud to have worked with him — not the most interesting person on earth.”
She went on, “And at that time, he was very much in character, the way he was in those days. So he was really uninteresting, and I remember having these lunches with him and being like, ‘What is happening? When can I go home?’ And he wouldn’t really be able to talk to me, so I would talk to the waiters and the people in the restaurants.”
Eventually, Foster found a way in. “He finally walked me through improvisation by the time we had our third lunch together, and it opened my eyes to what acting could be,” Foster said.
She continued incredulously, “I realised at 12, ‘Oh, it’s my fault because I haven’t brought enough to the table.’ I’ve just been saying lines and waiting for my next line and acting naturally, but building a character is something different.”
After remembering how “sweaty and giggly and excited” she was, she recounted returning to her mother, whom she told, “‘I’ve had this epiphany.’ And I think from there, everything changed.”
Foster’s next major project is the French film, Vie Privée, a mystery thriller which premiered at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and is expected to receive a wider release in 2026.
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