Jodie Foster's Brave New Role
After almost 40 films and two Oscars, Jodie Foster remains one of Hollywood's most sought after actresses. In her new thriller, "The Brave One," she plays a radio talk show host trying to pull her life together after a brutal crime until she realizes it will never be the same.
Foster sat down with Harry Smith to talk about her role. In the film, Foster's character, Erica Bain, is in love with New York City, and talks on the airwaves about this beautiful place where she lives.
"In some ways, the nostalgia of what New York used to be, right, before Times Square was Disneyland. Some of the things disappearing before our very eyes, of course, as she is disappearing before our very eyes," Foster explains. "It's a beautiful movie. I have to say, it's one of the best movies I've made in years. I'm so proud of it."
Initially, the role wasn't written for a talk show host. Asked if that was her idea, Foster tells Smith, "It was written initially as sort of, any kind of journalist. The idea of having there be this music, that music that's her voice that kind of carries you through the film in the night as she walks in the night really appealed to me for a lot of reasons, and for a lot narrative reasons."Photos: "The Brave One"
In the film, Foster's character becomes the victim of a horrible crime and she changes. Is this a metaphor for something bigger or is this just something that happened to a person?
"Well, I think it's a personal story, of course, and you follow this character and you stand in her shoes and then you change with her. But it's also in some ways a metaphor for, you know, post 9/11 America, post-9/11 New York," Foster explains. "Here's a place where there's a cop on every corner and we're the safest big city in the world and Times Square is Disneyland and every condo costs millions of dollars and why is it underneath the surface of things there is this fear? And it's a fear that's been there all along. And just was waiting to be awakened."
In the film, Foster also has a love scene. "The love scene is quite interesting in the movie because it's also inter-cut with also violent images and the idea that the body and what the body represents to her," the actress explains. "She's just a voice. She's not a face, she's not a body. He was her body, her boyfriend was her body. When she loses him, she becomes a ghost in some ways so the idea of the body is very important in the film."
How does Foster get ready when she is filming? "Well, you know, I love literature. I love language. I love words. And that's what gets me going in the morning, I think that's what moves me. And so that's what I have to find when I make a film. Sometimes it means coaxing it out of the script. And sometimes it is already there," Foster tells Smith.
Foster, 44, has been in "the business" for almost 42 years. Asked about today's tabloid headlines of young starlets landing in trouble, the actress says, "Well, it's a different time now than it was when I was 18. When I was 18, we all made fools of ourselves and people didn't have long lenses following us everywhere you went. But also, you know, when I was 18, they didn't pay people crazy amounts of money."
"Also, you know, different circumstances. My mom was quite clear about compartmentalizing my life, so there was work, which was from 8 in the morning until 6 or 7 and then after that, that was your real life," Foster adds. "And all of the cappuccinos that get brought to you and the makeup and that kind of stuff really belongs in the work world. That doesn't belong in the other world."