Jodie Foster remembers working with Robert De Niro: “He really was awkward”
Even though she was already an experienced actor with dozens of credits to her name across film and television, there was understandable consternation when Jodie Foster was first offered the role of a teenage sex worker.
After all, she’d been the star of several family-friendly Disney movies, and partnering up with Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro for an unflinching street-level psychological thriller was a huge departure from anything she’d ever done at that point.
There’s a reason why hindsight is always 20/20, though, with any early doubts alleviated by Foster’s Academy Award-nominated performance in a movie that was widely celebrated at the time and is now regarded as one of the greatest ever made, not to mention a high point for its director in a career regularly defined by greatness.
Besides Foster, her mother also needed some convincing that the part of Iris Steensma was one worth pursuing, which initially raised eyebrows. “He called my mom about the part, and she thought he was crazy,” she said to The Hollywood Reporter. “But I went in to meet him for an interview. My mom thought, with my school uniform on, there was no way he’d think I was right for it. But he said yes, and she trusted him.”
Fortunately, Foster’s mother was already a fan of Scorsese’s work, but that wasn’t a free pass for Foster to shoulder the burden herself. “Part of the deal was that any scenes that felt uncomfortable sexually, they would have an adult be a stand-in,” she explained. “So my sister Connie, who was over 18, stood in for a couple of over-the-shoulder shots.”
De Niro’s performance as Travis Bickle was characterised in part by his lack of social skills and inability to form any meaningful connections, not that the young Foster was completely aware of the intricacies of method acting at that age. As a result, she often found her patience wearing thin when they were cultivating their on-screen dynamic.
“Robert De Niro and I had a bunch of outings, where he took me to different diners around town and walked through the script with me. After the first time, I was completely bored,” she admitted. “Robert was pretty socially awkward then and was pretty much in character, which was his process. I think I rolled my eyes at times because he really was awkward.”
Despite the awkwardness of their time spent together, De Niro helped Foster to “understand improvisation and building a character in a way that was almost nonverbal,” regardless of whether or not she was bored out of her mind at points. Considering she’d go on to win two Academy Awards and become known as one of the best in the business, she may have even picked up a trick or two.
