Jodie Foster Biography

Jodie Foster (born Alicia Christian Foster; November 19, 1962) is an American actress, film director, and producer.

Foster began acting in commercials at the age of three, and rose to prominence at the age of 13 in the 1976 film Taxi Driver as the preteen prostitute Iris, for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1989, for playing a rape victim in The Accused. In 1991, she starred in The Silence of the Lambs, receiving international acclaim and her second Academy Award for Best Actress. She received her fourth Academy Award nomination for playing a hermit in Nell (1994). Her other best-known work includes Contact (1997), The Brave One (2007), and Carnage (2011). Foster made her directorial debut in 1991 with Little Man Tate; she also directed the films Home for the Holidays (1995) and The Beaver (2011).

In addition to her two Academy Awards, she has won three BAFTA Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, including the Cecil B DeMille Award for "outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment", and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Early life

Foster was born November 19, 1962, in Los Angeles, California. She is the youngest of four children born to Evelyn Ella "Brandy" (née Almond) and Lucius Fisher Foster III. Her father, a decorated U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel turned real estate broker, came from a wealthy background and left his wife before Foster was born. Foster has two older sisters, Lucinda "Cindy" Foster (b. 1954) and Constance "Connie" Foster (b. 1955), and an older brother, Lucius Fisher "Buddy" Foster (b. 1957), who was also a child actor. Evelyn supported her children by working as a film producer.

Foster attended a French-language prep school, the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, and graduated in 1980. She frequently stayed and worked in France as a teenager, and speaks French fluently. She then attended Yale University, earning a bachelor's degree in literature in 1985. She was scheduled to graduate in 1984, but the shooting of then-President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley, Jr., in which Hinckley's fascination with Foster created unwanted adverse publicity for her, caused her to take a semester's leave of absence from Yale. She also received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the university in 1997.

Due to her French fluency, Foster has dubbed herself in French-language versions of most of her films. In 2004, she took a minor role in the French WWI film, A Very Long Engagement. She also understands German and Spanish and can converse in Italian.

Career

Child star

Foster made nearly 50 film and television appearances before she attended college. She began her career at age three as a Coppertone girl in a television commercial and debuted as a television actress in a 1968 episode of Mayberry R.F.D. She was managed by her mother. In 1969, she appeared in an episode of Gunsmoke, where she was credited as "Jody Foster". She is also credited as "Jodi Foster" for her 1970 Daniel Boone role and credited as "Jodie Foster" for her 1970 Adam-12 role. Although not a regular on The Courtship of Eddie's Father, she appeared from time to time as Eddie's friend Joey Kelly. She made her film debut in the 1970 TV movie Menace on the Mountain and was featured as Tallulah in Bugsy Malone in 1976. As a child, Foster made a number of Disney movies, including One Little Indian (1973), and Napoleon and Samantha (1972), in which she was grabbed by a circus lion. Foster continued to star in Disney films into her early teens. On television, she appeared in an episode of The Partridge Family titled "The Eleven-Year Itch", co-starred with Christopher Connelly in the 1974 TV series Paper Moon and alongside Martin Sheen in the 1976 cult film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. As a teenager, Foster made several appearances on the French pop music circuit as a singer. Commenting on her years as a child actress, which she describes as an "actor's career", Foster has said that "it was very clear to me at a young age that I had to fight for my life and that if I didn't, my life would get gobbled up and taken away from me." She hosted Saturday Night Live at age 14, making her the youngest person to host at that time until Drew Barrymore hosted at the age of seven. She also said,

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Foster made her debut (and only official) musical recordings in France in 1977: two seven-inch singles, "Je T'attends Depuis la Nuit des Temps" b/w "La Vie C'est Chouette" and "When I Looked at Your Face" backed with "La Vie C'est Chouette". The A-side of the former is sung in French, the A-side of the latter in English. The B-side of both is mostly spoken word and is performed in both French and English. These three recordings were included on the soundtrack to Foster's 1977 French film Moi, fleur bleue.

Foster starred in three films in 1976: Taxi Driver, Bugsy Malone, and Freaky Friday. She was nominated for the Academy Award For Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Taxi Driver. She won two British Academy Film Awards in 1977: the BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performances in Bugsy Malone opposite Scott Baio and Taxi Driver opposite Robert De Niro. She received a nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance in Freaky Friday. As a teenager, she also starred in the Disney adventure Candleshoe (1977) and the coming-of-age drama Foxes (1980).

Adult career

Foster made the transition to more mature roles as an adult, but it was not without initial difficulty, as several of the films in her early adult career in the 1980s, such as The Hotel New Hampshire, Five Corners, and Stealing Home, were financially unsuccessful. Due to this, she had to audition for the main role of gang rape victim Sarah Tobias in The Accused, which was to become her breakthrough role as an adult actress. Based on a true story, the film depicts Tobias' struggle to receive justice for herself. It received mainly positive reviews and earned Foster a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award as well as a nomination for a BAFTA Award.

In 1991, she starred as FBI trainee Clarice Starling in the thriller The Silence of the Lambs opposite Anthony Hopkins. The film became an unexpected box office hit, grossing nearly $273 million in theaters and became Foster's first blockbuster. She also received her second Academy Award and Golden Globe Award, as well as her first BAFTA Award for Best Actress for her performance. The same year saw the release of Foster's debut feature film as a director, Little Man Tate. It was a critically acclaimed drama about a child prodigy, in which she also co-starred as the child's mother. The following year, Foster founded a production company called Egg Pictures in Los Angeles, which produced primarily independent films for distribution by other companies. She said that she did not have the ambition to produce "big mainstream popcorn" movies and, as a child, independent films had made her more interested in the movie business than mainstream ones. The company was closed down in 2001.

Foster's next roles included playing a prostitute in Woody Allen's comedy Shadows and Fog and Laurel Sommersby in the American Civil War drama Sommersby. She starred in two films in 1994, first in the commercially successful western spoof Maverick and later in Nell, in which she played an isolated woman, raised speaking an invented language, who finds it difficult to be confronted with civilization for the first time. Her performance in Nell earned her nominations for her fourth Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and an MTV Movie Award, and won her a Screen Actors Guild Award and a People's Choice Award, among others.

The following year Foster released her second film as a director, Home for the Holidays (1995), a black comedy starring Holly Hunter and Robert Downey Jr.. In 1996, Women in Film awarded her the [[Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards#THE CRYSTAL AWARD|Crystal Award]] for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. In the same year, Foster was awarded with the Berlinale Camera award at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival.

Foster made her debut in a science fiction film in 1997, when she starred opposite Matthew McConaughey in Contact, based on the novel by scientist Carl Sagan. She portrayed a scientist searching for extraterrestrial life in the SETI project. She commented on the script that "I have to have some acute personal connection with the material. And that's pretty hard for me to find." Contact was her first experience with a bluescreen. She commented, "Blue walls, blue roof. It was just blue, blue, blue. And I was rotated on a lazy Susan with the camera moving on a computerized arm. It was really tough." The film was another commercial success and earned Foster nominations for numerous awards, including a Golden Globe. In 1998, an asteroid, 17744 Jodiefoster, was named in her honor. Her next starring role was in Anna and the King, a remake of the 1946 film based on Margaret Landon's 1944 novel, which became an international commercial success.In 2002, Foster took over the lead role in the thriller Panic Room after Nicole Kidman dropped out due to a previous injury. The film costarred Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam and Kristen Stewart and was directed by David Fincher. It grossed over $30 million in its opening weekend in the United States, Foster's biggest box office opening success of her career so far. Her next screen appearance was in a supporting role in the French film Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement) (2004), following which she returned to English-language films with the thriller Flightplan (2005), which opened once again in the top position at the U.S. box office and was a worldwide hit. She portrayed a woman whose daughter disappears on an airplane that her character, an engineer, helped to design. In 2006, Foster co-starred in Inside Man, a thriller directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington and Clive Owen, which again opened at the top of the U.S. box office and became another international hit. In 2007, she starred in The Brave One directed by Neil Jordan and co-starring Terrence Howard, another urban thriller that opened at 1 at the U.S. box office. Her performance in the film earned her a sixth Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination and another People's Choice nomination, for Favorite Female Action Star. Commenting on her latest roles, she has said she enjoys appearing in mainstream genre films that have a "real heart to them."

In 2008, Foster starred in Nim's Island alongside Gerard Butler and Abigail Breslin, portraying a reclusive writer who is contacted by a young girl after her father goes missing at sea. The film was the first comedy that Foster starred in since Maverick in 1994, and was also a commercial success. The following year, Foster provided a voice for Maggie in a tetralogy episode of The Simpsons titled "Four Great Women and a Manicure."

Foster returned to directing in 2011 with the black comedy The Beaver, starring herself and her friend and Maverick co-star Mel Gibson. Based on a script by Kyle Killen, it tells the story of a depressed CEO of a toy company, who develops an alternative personality based on a beaver hand puppet. It premiered in March 2011 at the South by Southwest film festival and received mixed reviews. It was a box office flop, making only approximately $1 million during its first month after its general release in May 2011. The same year, Foster also appeared in Roman Polanski's Carnage alongside John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz. The film centres around four parents, whose initially peaceful meeting to discuss an incident between their sons gradually descends to a conflict. It premiered at the 68th Venice International Film Festival in September 2011, and garnered mainly positive reviews. Foster received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.

Foster was honoured with the Cecil B. DeMille Award, awarded annually to actors and filmmakers "who have had a definite impact on the world of entertainment", at the 70th Golden Globe Awards in January 2013.

Foster appeared in the science fiction film Elysium, which was released in August 2013. Two new directorial projects, independent film Money Monster and television series Angie's Body, have also been announced.

Target of fan obsession

John Hinckley, Jr., became obsessed with Foster after watching Taxi Driver a number of times, and stalked her while she attended Yale, sending her love letters to her campus mail box and even talking to her on the phone. On March 30, 1981, he attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan (shooting and wounding Reagan and three others) and claimed his motive was to impress Foster, then a Yale freshman. The media stormed the Yale campus in April "like a cavalry invasion," and followed Foster relentlessly.

The incident caused Foster intense discomfort and reporters have been warned in advance not to bring up the subject in front of her; she has been known to walk out of interviews at the mention of Hinckley's name. In 1991, Foster canceled an interview with NBC's Today Show when she discovered Hinckley would be mentioned in the introduction. Foster's only public reactions to the incident up to that time were a press conference afterwards and an article titled "Why Me?" that she wrote for Esquire in December 1982. In that article she wrote that returning to work on the film Svengali with Peter O'Toole "made me fall in love with acting again" after the assassination attempt had shaken her confidence. In 1999, she discussed the experience with Charlie Rose of 60 Minutes II.

Another man, Edward Richardson, followed Foster around Yale and planned to shoot her, but decided against it because she "was too pretty."

Personal life

Foster has two sons: Charles "Charlie" Foster (b. July 20, 1998) and Christopher "Kit" Foster (b. September 29, 2001).

Foster broke up with her long-time partner, Cydney Bernard, in 2008. They had been together since 1993. In her acceptance speech upon receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards, she commented about her sexual orientation: "I already did my coming out about 1,000 years ago back in the stone age, those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and co-workers, and then gradually and proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met." She thanked Bernard, calling her "my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life". Foster also thanked Mel Gibson as one of the people who "saved" her.

Foster is an atheist. Foster has stated she has "great respect for all religions" and spends "a lot of time studying divine texts, whether it's Eastern religion or Western religion." She and her children celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah.

Awards and nominations

List of career awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Title	Result
1977	Academy Award	Best Actress in a Supporting Role	Taxi Driver
1977	British Academy (BAFTA) Film Award	Best Supporting Actress	Bugsy Malone and Taxi Driver
1977	British Academy (BAFTA) Film Award	Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles	Bugsy Malone and Taxi Driver
1977	Golden Globe Award	Best Actress " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy	Freaky Friday
1980	Young Artist Award	Best Young Actress in a Major Motion Picture	Foxes
1989	Academy Award	Best Actress in a Leading Role	The Accused
1989	Golden Globe Award	Best Actress " Motion Picture Drama	The Accused
1989	Independent Spirit Award	Best Female Lead	Five Corners
1989	People's Choice Award	Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture Actress
1990	British Academy (BAFTA) Film Award	Best Actress in a Leading Role	The Accused
1992	Academy Award	Best Actress in a Leading Role	The Silence of the Lambs
1992	Saturn Award	Best Actress	The Silence of the Lambs
1992	British Academy (BAFTA) Film Award	Best Actress in a Leading Role	The Silence of the Lambs
1992	Golden Globe Award	Best Actress " Motion Picture Drama	The Silence of the Lambs
1992	People's Choice Award	Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture Actress
1994	Academy Award	Best Actress in a Leading Role	Nell
1995	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress " Motion Picture Drama	Nell
1995	People's Choice Award	Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture Actress	Nell
1995	Screen Actors Guild Award	Outstanding Female Actor in a Leading Role	Nell
1998	Saturn Award	Best Actress	Contact
1998	Golden Globe Award	Best Actress " Motion Picture Drama	Contact
1999	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Made for Television Movie	'
2003	Saturn Award	Best Actress	Panic Room
2006	Saturn Award	Best Actress	Flightplan
2008	Golden Globe Award	Best Actress " Motion Picture Drama	'
2008	People's Choice Award	Favorite Female Action Star
2012	Golden Globe Award	Best Actress " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy	Carnage
2013	Golden Globe Award	Cecil B. DeMille Award

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1968"1970	Mayberry, R.F.D.	bit parts in 2 episodes	TV series
1969	The Doris Day Show	Jenny Benson	TV series, season 1: "The Baby Sitter"
1969	Julia	Cindy Blanchard	TV series, season 2 episode 9: "Romeo and Julia"
1969	Gunsmoke	Susan Sadler	TV series, season 15 episode 13: "The Roots of Fear"
1970	Menace on the Mountain	Suellen McIver	TV movie in 2 parts "The Wonderful World of Disney"
1970	Daniel Boone	Rachel	TV series, season 6, episode 24: "Bringing Up Josh"
1970	Adam 12	Mary Bennett	TV series, season 3, episode 6: "Log 55 Missing Girl"
1970	Nanny and the Professor	Angela	TV series, season 1 episode 4: "The Scientific Approach"
1971	My Three Sons	Priscilla Hobson	TV series, season 11
1971	Gunsmoke	Patricia	TV series, season 17, episode 15: "P.S. Murry Christmas"
1972	Bonanza	Bluebird	TV series, season 13, episode 24: "A Place to Hide"
1972	Ghost Story (Circle of Fear)	Judy	TV series, season 1, episode 8: "House of Evil"
1972	My Sister Hank	Henrietta "Hank" Bennett	TV movie
1972	Napoleon and Samantha	Samantha
1972	Kansas City Bomber	Rita
1972	'	Anne Chan (voice)	TV series
1972	Ironside	Pip Morrison	TV series, season 5, episode 20, "Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Murder"
1973	Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice	Elizabeth Henderson	TV series
1973	Rookie of the Year	Sharon Lee	TV
1973	Alexander	Sue	TV
1973	The Partridge Family	Julie	TV series, season 3 episode 18 "The Eleven Year Itch"
1973	Love Story	Ellie Madison	TV series, season 1 episode 10 "The Youngest Lovers"
1973	Tom Sawyer	Becky Thatcher
1973	Kung Fu	Alethea Patricia Ingram	TV series, season 1, episode 11: "Alethea"
1973	The New Perry Mason	Hildy Haynes	TV series, season 1, episode 6: "The Case of the Deadly Deeds"
1973	One Little Indian	Martha McIver
1973	'	Pugsley (voice)	TV series
1974	Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore	Audrey
1974	Smile, Jenny, You're Dead (Harry O)	Liberty Cole	TV
1974	Paper Moon	Addie Loggins	TV series
1975	Medical Center	Ivy	TV series, season 6, episode 17: "The Captives"
1975	'	T.K. Dearing	TV
1976	Taxi Driver	Iris Steensma	BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer David di Donatello Special David Award Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress Los Angeles Film Critics Association New Generation Award National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (2nd place) Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1976	Echoes of a Summer	Deirdre Striden	aka The Last Castle
1976	Bugsy Malone	Tallulah	BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer
1976	'	Rynn Jacobs	Saturn Award for Best Actress
1976	Freaky Friday	Annabel Andrews/ Ellen Andrews	Nominated"?Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1977	Moi, fleur bleue	Isabelle Tristan (aka Fleur bleue)	aka Stop Calling Me Baby!
1977	Casotto	Teresina Fedeli	aka Beach House
1977	Candleshoe	Casey Brown
1980	Foxes	Jeanie	Nominated"?Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress in a Major Motion Picture
1980	Carny	Donna
1982	O'Hara's Wife	Barbara O'Hara
1983	Svengali	Zoe Alexander
1984	'	Frannie Berry
1984	The Blood of Others	Hélène Bertrand	aka Le Sang des autres
1986	Mesmerized	Victoria Thompson	aka My Letter to George
1987	Five Corners	Linda	Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female
1987	Siesta	Nancy
1988	Stealing Home	Katie Chandler
1988	'	Sarah Tobias	Academy Award for Best Actress David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actress Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Motion Picture Drama Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress National Board of Review Award for Best Actress Nominated"?BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated"?Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress Nominated"?New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
1990	Catchfire	Anne Benton	aka Backtrack
1991	'	Clarice Starling	Academy Award for Best Actress BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Motion Picture Drama Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Nominated"?National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress Nominated"?Sant Jordi Award for Best Foreign Actress Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Actress
1991	Little Man Tate	Dede Tate	Also director
1992	Shadows and Fog	Prostitute
1993	Sommersby	Laurel Sommersby
1994	Maverick	Mrs. Annabelle Bransford
1994	Nell	Nell Kellty	Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress (tied with Linda Fiorentino for The Last Seduction) David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actress Golden Camera Award for Best International Actress Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated"?Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress Nominated"?Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Motion Picture Drama Nominated"?MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance
1996	Frasier	Marlene (voice)	TV series, episode "Moon Dance"
1997	'	Betty (voice)	TV series, episode "Never Again"
1997	Contact	Dr. Eleanor Arroway	Saturn Award for Best Actress Nominated"?Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress Nominated"?Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Motion Picture Drama
1999	Anna and the King	Anna Leonowens
2002	'	Sister Assumpta
2002	Panic Room	Meg Altman	Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Actress
2002	Tusker	Minnie	Animated voice over
2003	Abby Singer	Herself
2004	'	Elodie Gordes	Un long dimanche de fiançailles
2005	Flightplan	Kyle Pratt	Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Actress
2005	Statler and Waldorf: From the Balcony	Herself	Guest appearance in episode 8
2006	Inside Man	Madeline White
2007	'	Erica Bain	Nominated"?Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Motion Picture Drama Nominated"?Irish Film Award for Best International Actress Nominated"?St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
2008	Nim's Island	Alexandra Rover
2009	'	Maggie Simpson (voice)	TV series, episode: "Four Great Women and a Manicure"
2011	'	Meredith Black	Also director
2011	Carnage	Penelope Longstreet	Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Ensemble Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best Ensemble Nominated"?San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Performance by an Ensemble Nominated"?Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
2013	Elysium	Secretary Jessica Delacourt

Producer

Year	Title	Notes
1986	Mesmerized	co-producer
1994	Nell
1995	Home for the Holidays
1998	'	(TV) executive producer
2000	Waking the Dead	executive producer
2002	'
2007	'	executive producer

Director

Year	Title	Notes
1988	Tales from the Darkside	(1 episode, "Do Not Open This Box")
1991	Little Man Tate
1995	Home for the Holidays
2011	'
2013	Orange Is the New Black	(1 episode, "Lesbian Request Denied")