The one thing that irritates Jodie Foster about young actors: “I like it on my terms”
Hollywood isn’t the greatest industry for a child to grow up in. Corruption lurks around every corner, with horror stories about predatory figures and drug abuse all too common.
From the days of Shirley Temple being sexualised to the era of Drew Barrymore accompanying adults to parties, where, under the age of ten, she consumed drugs and alcohol, it seems that Hollywood has always fostered an environment that is certainly not meant for children.
Luckily, some child actors have managed to emerge from the industry relatively unscathed, like Jodie Foster, whose early Disney days led to an incredibly successful and Oscar-winning career. From a young age, it seemed as though Foster had her head screwed on, having shown herself to be a very gifted and intelligent child from the get-go. Of course, Foster had her fair share of issues as a child under the spotlight, such as feeling the pressure of providing for her family financially and missing out on normal childhood activities, but she never found herself going off the rails like many of her contemporaries.
Foster seemed to understand the art of acting, even when she was small, and she took on many movies at a young age that would become highly acclaimed, like Bugsy Malone and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. The 1970s were a fruitful decade for Foster, and with the success of these well-respected films under her belt, paired with her fame as a Disney star, she transitioned into adult roles with ease.
By 1991, she had won a ‘Best Actress’ Oscar for The Silence of the Lambs and directed her first feature, Little Man Tate, continuing to remain a stalwart feature of Hollywood. As an expert in the industry – she was practically raised a child of cameras, auditions, and interviews – Foster knows what it’s like to be a child star.
However, she can’t help but feel like some child actors simply go about things the wrong way, picking roles that will only negatively impact their career trajectory. To become a successful actor as an adult, it helps if you’re resumé has some impressive roles to show for it – even if you’re too young to know any better.
Talking to Variety, Foster revealed how important it is to have control of your acting choices as soon as you can. “I like it on my terms,” she said. “When I was a kid, I worked so much that by the time that I was 18, I needed to take a different approach. I see a lot of young actors, and I’m not saying I’m jealous, but I don’t understand how they just want to act. They don’t care if the movie’s bad. They don’t care if the dialogue is bad. They don’t care if they’re a grape in a Fruit of the Loom ad.”
Evidently, if you want to become a true star, you’ve got to work on it from a very early age. Of course, this isn’t always the case, but it certainly helped Foster to have credits in movies like Taxi Driver and experience of working with well-known actors and directors, which set her up for an incredibly successful career.
