Jodie Foster: Anything is Possible

LG: With serial killers?

JF: With the fact of violence as an established piece of American culture. It isn't just serial killers, it's about child abuse, subtle abuse. Those things that make the hero the hero and the villain the villain.

LG: Did you worry much about the glorification of violence before you decided to do it?

JF: I'm not the filmmaker, I'm just the actor. And I feel very responsible for my character. But it's not the information that's bad, it's how it's used. You can take a 2×4 and you can either hit somebody over the head or you can build a building with it.

LG: That's the reasoning of the NRA--they support the sale of guns because it's not guns who kill people, it's people who kill people. Are you for or against gun control?

JF: I don't discuss it.

LG: It's pretty straightforward.

JF: Am I for it or against it? Absolutely for it. Guns are not information. It's an entirely different issue.

LG: Do you worry that some sicko will see a picture like Silence and get some new ideas about how to kill people?

JF: I don't believe in censorship of anything. I believe in not going to see something. I believe in making a decision about it.

LG: What about when it gets to child pornography? Or the resurgence of something like Nazism in Germany?

JF: This is what I think, okay? I do believe there are moral and societal imperatives. I know that putting rape victims' names in the paper is not against the law, never has been, and never will be. But the issue is not the legality of it, the issue is not the censorship of it. It is that there are moral imperatives and moral decisions. And the legal system which is about date and proof is not the be-all and end-all of what's correct. The Accused is a perfect example of that. Everything is not black and white.

LG: When your sense of morality is jolted, do you ever feel a need to speak out, being in the public position you're in?

JF: The one thing that you'll see from everything that I talk about is that I'm not political. It's not part of who I am. I don't like being a spokesperson.

LG: So you don't feel that you should talk about things that move you or that you feel passionately about?

JF: Yes, I do. And I will respond to them in a responsible way. My movies, that's how I express myself. I can't be forced to be somebody I'm not.

LG: Was it when you made The Accused that you first felt this?

JF: I always said acting wasn't stimulating enough, that it was beneath me in some way, that it was never going to be enough for me. And what I realized was that I was playing safe. And it was up to me to invest in it, with a gravity, to take that extra leap. The Accused was the one moment in my life where I really realized that what I wanted to be was an actor. That it was, ultimately, completely and totally satisfying.

LG: I know you've said that you don't learn by winning Oscars but rather by disappointments. But you said that before you won your Oscar for The Accused. Does that still hold true?

JF: I think it's very true. Disappointments are absolutely instrumental in people's lives. Those are the situations that force them to make choices and it's not the accolades or the Oscars or the money or the rewards, it's the disappointments that force them to evaluate and center themselves, or force them over the edge. The one thing that winning the Oscar gave me was I realized that I had been at the "big party" of the year. It made me realize that all these people sitting around going, "Got to get this kind of movie, got to do that kind of movie, got to do a light movie, got to do a comedy that makes $120 million"--it's just bullshit. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. I felt as if this was just a brief indication of saying I will be rewarded if I just do what's right. And not consistently worrying about what other people are going to think or how people are going to perceive me.

LG: How do you think people perceive you? How complicated a person are you?

JF: I'm inordinately uncomplicated. I may be more complicated than I think, but I may be too young to know.

LG: How isolated are you in your private life?

JF: It's a balancing act. I have very, very few friends, but the ones I have I'm very close to.

LG: Do you make new friends?

JF: Very rarely. But I have great new acquaintances.

LG: Has it been difficult always being in the public eye?

JF: Yes, but I don't know anything else. It's just something that you accept, the way you accept being a diplomat's child or a Kennedy. The way you accept being black or anything that somehow sets you apart.

LG: How did your mother keep your head from getting too swollen?

JF: She would continually say, "What do you want to do when you grow up? Acting's a good hobby, isn't it? It's a fun thing to do." She was preparing me for the possibility that it would not continue, which is the case with most child actors. Also, I don't think she saw me as having the personality of somebody who would grow up to be an actor. And she's right, I don't have an actor's personality at all. I'm not one of those people you ask to dance and I'll get up on a table and do it. It's something that in my personal life I find painful, being the center of attention. I don't like it at all.

LG: You certainly must have been the center of attention when you wound up in the jaws of a lion during the making of your first feature film, Napoleon and Samantha, when you were just 10.

JF: That was an accident. There were three lions: the actual one who was 110 years old and didn't have any teeth, only drank milk, and very rarely wanted to do anything; a stand-in lion; and a stunt lion. The stand-in lion was brought in and I worked with him. We were going down a hill and the lion was in back of me. Got to the end of the shot, and I looked down, and he came around and picked me up, turned me sideways, and shook me. I watched everybody run away in panic. I went into shock. The trainer came and said, "Drop it." The lion dropped me and I went falling down the hill. When I woke up, I was on a stretcher in a private plane. My mother and I had long discussions about it and since I was going to be okay she felt it was important for me to get back and work with the lion, which I did two weeks later.

LG: Do you have a scar?

JF: Yeah, on both sides.

LG: That's better than a tattoo.

JF: Yeah.

LG: In your youth you were compared with Shirley Temple and Tatum O'Neal. Most child actors don't last as long or make it as far as you have. Is it more talent or luck, do you think?

JF: There's talent, there's luck, but there's also very specific management. And my mom spent a lot of time trying to disassociate me from the pack. For example, The Breakfast Club era, not having me be involved in that group.

LG: The Brat Pack.

JF: Right. My mom felt it was very important that I be recognized on my own. When there would be big things like the cover of Newsweek or Time talking about child actresses, she declined for me to be involved because she said it would serve me badly. I really am very lucky to have had somebody who was a real person who was there to protect me and who wasn't enamored with the possibility of a flashy career. Because you do live vicariously through your children's successes, so much of it was about her really wanting me to be respected and taken seriously.

LG: Were you brought up a Catholic?

JF: No. I'm going to limbo. Never been baptized. I didn't know anything about religion until I went to college. My mom was pretty down on it when I was growing up.

LG: So you've never prayed to God, even as a kid?

JF: Never. I did believe in the Easter Bunny, however.

LG: How significant was it for you to have learned French and to have lived in France?

JF: It's a big part of my life; it always will be. It's a real safety net for me, Paris. I still have a place there. It's like a womb, a very comforting place for me.

LG: You've said your mother has saved you from social disgrace. Such as?

JF: She taught me tact, diplomacy, politeness. She taught me to send thank you notes. To say "yes--" or "no, ma'am," how to be a public person in a way that was graceful.

LG: Didn't she also teach you to appreciate Marlon Brando?

JF: My mom was fascinated with Brando when I was a kid. We had Brando books all over the house. She made me go to a Brando festival. I've seen every Brando movie ever made.

LG: Didn't you go to school with some of Brando's children?

JF: Yeah, sure did. Miko, and one of his daughters, too. Miko was a friend of mine. He was a great kid, a big goofball. Miko's mom, Movita, was a beautiful woman.

LG: Who was your favorite writer when you were a kid?

JF: Baudelaire. I really was obsessed with the darker side of things.

LG: You got into Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and Yale. Why'd you apply to so many and how'd you choose?

JF: My mom was out of town and the applications had to be done. I got so paranoid about it I sent in as many as I could get. I chose Yale because it was close to New York but it wasn't in New York.

LG: Did you make many friends at Yale?

JF: All my friends I met on the first day. Isn't that funny? The production designer on Tate was my roommate in college. We had a wild apartment. Junk everywhere. We had a train, flashing Christmas lights all year long. We had a big blow-up plastic pool with animals on it, only it was attached to the wall. We had a huge Twister set on the wall. So all our toys were art pieces. My bedroom was Japanese minimalist, like a futon, an orchid.

LG: How difficult was it having to have security guards while going to college?

JF: I've spoken on the topic so it's not like I ever have to talk about it again. But it is hard being a public figure.

LG: You're tough, Jodie. In American Film you said, "I've done weird things when pushed to certain extremes. I've let myself be rolled over by a steamroller, then said, 'Please! Roll me over some more!' " Do you remember saying that?

JF: It comes from work, where the production wants me to hang off a cliff at five in the morning and I'm like, "Yeah, okay! My job!" I let myself be taken advantage of in movies because I want to be one of the guys and I don't want to be the histrionic actress who won't do anything. I want to be the person who takes chances and is adventurous. I don't want to be the idiot who sits in her trailer and says, "I can't do that."

LG: In 1987 you told Interview: "Girls from single-parent homes really want to get married. I do. I really believe in marriage." Still?

JF: That's funny. There's a yearning for family because a single parent relationship with a child is a very, very intimate experience. And that's what you know of love--that absolute intimacy. And you won't settle for anything less.

LG: Would you like to have children one day?

JF: Yeah, I do. If I don't have them I won't feel like I'm some kind of failure particularly. I just know it will be a different path. But it's definitely something I'd like to do.

LG: What do you think of this comment about you: that you have perfected the technique of seeming transparent while being unreachable?

JF: Well, anybody who's discussing this is a press person. My life with the press is very different than my life on the outside. It's my job. I promote movies. That's what I do.

LG: Last question: Do you believe in magic?

JF: I have rituals, and I believe in magic. I always tell my life as a series of "Twilight Zone" episodes.... My favorite one of that entire series was the one about the black prize fighter who's totally down and out. I always cry when I see this one. He was kind of good once but he's not good anymore and he lives in this boarding house with this woman and her child. The child totally adores him. The kid's always saying, "Joe, you're going to get that guy, you're going to pound him tonight." And the boxer says, "No I'm not, I'm going to lose." "No, you're not going to lose, you'll never lose."

"I'm unlucky kid, I'm old, I've been punched out." 'You've got to believe, you've got to believe!" So the boxer goes to the fights and he gets really mad at his trainer and he punches his fist into the wall and breaks every bone in his hand. Then he goes into the ring and in five seconds he goes down. On the count of five he wakes up and he's the guy on top and the other guy's down. It's fantastic! Everywhere they go afterwards it's "Joe, you were great." He starts to believe it because everybody's paying attention to him and when he goes home the woman says, "You did great!" But the kid's just sitting there. The kid has tears in his eyes and he says, "Do you believe now? Do you believe in magic?" And the boxer says, "Well, really no, I can't, I'm too old." And the kid just says, "If you don't believe in magic it just goes away." And the boxer wakes up." ... Ten." He's on the floor, he comes back...everyone hates him. He runs up to the kid and he's kind of desperate. And the kid is back the way he used to be. He says, "You'll get it next time."

I don't know why I love this story. It's the whole Franny and Zooey thing. You must have a fat lady. And it doesn't matter whether she exists or not. But it's very important to believe that anything is possible.

Lawrence Grobel interviewed Sally Field for our July issue.

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