'My role was making movies that mattered,' says Jodie Foster, as 'Taxi Driver' turns 50

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest is Jodie Foster. And we're going to look back on her life and career, starting with her early days as a child actor and her Oscar-nominated performance in "Taxi Driver" when she was 12. Next month marks the film's 50th anniversary. She recently received an Oscar nomination for the film "Nyad," an Emmy win for the latest season of the HBO series "True Detective" and is now starring in a new French-language film, "A Private Life." Along the way, Foster won many awards, including Oscars for the films "The Accused" and "The Silence Of The Lambs." In "A Private Life," she plays an American Freudian psychoanalyst in Paris. And with the exception of a few lines, she speaks French throughout the film.

When the film begins, everyone is angry with her, including her patients. One of them accuses her of having wasted his time. He's been in therapy with her for years, hoping it would help him quit smoking. It hasn't helped. So he tried a hypnotist, and after only one session, he quit cigarettes. Foster's character is very skeptical of hypnosis. But when one of her patients, a beautiful woman, dies under mysterious circumstances, Foster's character wants to get to the bottom of what happened, hoping she wasn't in any way responsible. Despite her skepticism, she sees a hypnotist, goes under, and that sets her on a path to uncover what happened to her patient.

Jodie Foster, welcome back to FRESH AIR. It's been years. And my impression is your life has changed a lot since then.

JODIE FOSTER: I don't know. It's moved on, but, you know, it's the same old me.

GROSS: Right.

FOSTER: And I'm always so happy to be on NPR because I'm such an NPR fan and such an NPR head.

GROSS: That is so great to hear. So your new film is in French. And you went to French language school, right?

FOSTER: Yeah. My mom, when I was about 9 years old, she had never traveled anywhere in her life. And she, right before then, she took a trip to France and fell in love with it and said, OK, you're going to learn French. You're going to go to an immersion school. And someday maybe you'll be a French actor. And so they dropped me in where it was a school, the Lycee Francais de Los Angeles, that does everything in French. So it was science and math and history, everything in French. And, you know, I cried for about six months.

GROSS: (Laughter).

FOSTER: And then I spoke fluently and got over it.

GROSS: So hypnosis plays a key role in the new movie. Did you ever go under, even for research?

FOSTER: Well, actually, I have. I quit smoking. When I quit smoking, I went to a hypnotist. And I was a really, really big smoker. So I tried everything, and I tried to quit 1 million times. And, you know, like everybody, I'd get edgy or I'd gain weight or I couldn't sleep. So I went to this guy and, you know, wrote the check for $90. And I don't know, he said a few things, I felt a little sleepy, but other than that, I didn't, you know, didn't go into any kind of trance. And I left thinking, well, this is dumb, I can't believe I gave that guy $90, and I could smoke tomorrow. And then I just never smoked again.

GROSS: Wow, that's great. That's kind of what happens in the movie.

FOSTER: Yeah, exactly.

GROSS: Well, not really.

FOSTER: Well, sort of.

GROSS: No, the movie sets her off on this, like, mystery.

FOSTER: Yeah.

GROSS: She becomes kind of a detective.

FOSTER: Yeah. I mean, a lot of people, my character, Lilian Steiner, is a Freudian psychoanalyst. And, you know, in the United States, psychoanalysis and Freud, we've kind of canceled him, you know? We decided he's, you know, a misogynist. And, you know, nobody really wanted to follow Freudian principles. But what he was most famous for, of course, when he started was these case histories of people who came in with hysterical illnesses and said, you know, my right arm won't move, or I'm blind for no reason. And he would say, well, let's uncover parts of your past, and that will help this physical ailment.

And in this character's case, she goes there because she can't stop crying - not crying, but just water just keeps coming out of her eyes, and she's really annoyed. That's never happened to her. She's not particularly sad. She just - water keeps coming out of her eyes. So interestingly, she goes back to this hypnosis, you know, rolling her eyes the whole time. And psychoanalysis and hypnosis, they started off together with Freud and then grew apart. And he denounced hypnosis. So there's this ongoing hatred between the two that gets looked at in the film.

GROSS: So just a question about your Freudian therapy. Do you actually lie down on a couch?

FOSTER: In the film, my patients lie down on a couch.

GROSS: Yes.

FOSTER: My character's patients. In my life, when I've done therapy, absolutely not.

GROSS: OK.

FOSTER: But apparently, you know, this is how they do it. And you look either out a window or at a blank wall, or perhaps at a painting that they put. You never look at the therapist. You know, there's all these rules as to how they make it. And it's all very interesting, and the people are fascinating, but it's definitely not something I would want to do.

GROSS: Would you be game to do a career retrospective?

FOSTER: Sure. Sure.

GROSS: OK. OK. I'm going to go back to the very beginning.

FOSTER: OK.

GROSS: You did a Coppertone commercial. A lot of people know that

FOSTER: (Laughter) Yes.

GROSS: When you were 3.

FOSTER: Yes.

GROSS: And it wasn't, like, the billboard or picture version. This was, like, a TV commercial.

FOSTER: Right. Yes.

GROSS: And we didn't see your bare behind, unlike the picture version.

FOSTER: Right.

GROSS: You know, the photograph version.

FOSTER: Yeah, there were a lot of things that were different. It was, you know, it was the '60s. And the dog would not perform. So the dog was, you know, they tried to get the dog to kind of pull at my bikini bottom. But the dog was, like, not having it.

GROSS: (Laughter) OK. And moving on.

FOSTER: OK.

GROSS: This is from "The Paul Lynde Show," which was...

FOSTER: Oh, yeah.

GROSS: ...I think from the early '70s. And so the main character, played by Paul Lynde, rings the doorbell looking for his daughter and son-in-law, who he either knows or thinks is living there. And when he walks in, he realizes, oh, it's like a hippie Buddhist commune.

FOSTER: (Laughter) OK.

GROSS: OK, here we go.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE PAUL LYNDE SHOW")

PAUL LYNDE: (As Paul Simms) Howie and Barbara Dickerson here?

FOSTER: (As Maggie) Are you the fuzz?

(LAUGHTER)

LYNDE: (As Paul Simms) No, I'm not the fuzz.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: (As Maggie) I'm not supposed to let the fuzz in.

LYNDE: (As Paul Simms) I'm Barbara's father.

FOSTER: (As Maggie) Well, I'm not supposed to let them in, either.

(LAUGHTER)

LYNDE: (As Paul Simms) Let me talk to your mother.

FOSTER: (As Maggie) Which one?

(LAUGHTER)

LYNDE: (As Paul Simms) Huh?

FOSTER: (As Maggie) Well, all the girls here are my mother.

LYNDE: (As Paul Simms) Just what a father wants to hear.

(LAUGHTER)

LYNDE: (As Paul Simms) Pardon me, young man, but I'm looking for Howie and Barbara Dickerson.

FOSTER: (As Maggie) He's meditating.

LYNDE: (As Paul Simms, snapping) Well, can't he hear me?

FOSTER: (As Maggie) Only if you're Buddha.

(LAUGHTER)

LYNDE: (As Paul Simms) Look, I'm not going to stand here and play straight man to you.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: (Laughter) I really - I do remember Paul Lynde because I really liked him.

GROSS: He's funny in this.

FOSTER: He was funny. He was funny. He was really nice to me. And, of course, he's very memorable, so I do remember being on that show.

GROSS: OK. I actually got one more.

FOSTER: OK.

GROSS: This is a Crest TV commercial.

FOSTER: Oh, yeah.

GROSS: So four guys are playing golf. One of them sinks a putt. The other guys react. And at the same time, you run up on the green, excited to tell your father about the visit to the dentist that you and your brother just had.

FOSTER: (Laughter) OK.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As George, groaning)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Thank you, George.

FOSTER: (As Jodie) Dad, Dad.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Jodie?

FOSTER: (As Jodie) Our checkup. Jimmy only had two cavities, and I didn't have any.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Hey, we really did it.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As George) How'd you do it?

FOSTER: (As Jodie) We brush with Crest now.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Must be the Crest. It has fluoride. The others we tried didn't.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As George) Hey, great. A toothpaste should fight cavities.

UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Crest can't promise everybody results like this, but we can promise most people good checkups. Fighting cavities is the whole idea behind Crest.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Hey, George, maybe your game is really tennis.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: Oh, boy.

GROSS: The acting is so terrible in that.

FOSTER: Oh, yeah. Well, but that was what you were supposed to do. You were supposed to be terrible. We didn't know. I mean, just was a different style. You know, it was a different style.

GROSS: But by which I think you mean, it sounds like somebody reading their lines for the first time (laughter).

FOSTER: Yes. Yes. And, yeah, I mean, I remember thinking, oh, well, this is not a job I'm going to do when I'm a grown-up because this seems like a very silly job. You know, I just learn lines, and then I say them. And somebody usually says to me, the first direction somebody tells me is usually act natural. Or, you know, maybe they'll say something like be excited on that line. And that part of it held no sway for me. I had no interest in that. The part that was interesting to me was being on set with these families of, you know, mostly guys. They really, you know, were all these brothers and fathers who would teach me things. And they'd talk about how the camera worked, and, you know, we would all be freezing together or complaining about the food together. And there was this community of people that I belonged to. And because I loved movies and loved television, a love that was such a big part of my life, I was a part of something. So that's the part that I remember. I don't remember the work particularly as being intriguing.

GROSS: Well, your mother was behind you doing all this. And since you didn't find it - acting very intriguing, did you feel - oh, and also because you became, like, the primary...

FOSTER: Breadwinner.

GROSS: Breadwinner, yeah. Did you feel like you were being forced to do it?

FOSTER: No. I think that it was more complicated than that. You know, there were moments where, for example, I would - I'd rebel because I didn't want to take my makeup off, something I hated doing as a kid. You know, I hated taking my makeup off. And at the time, we wore that kind of, like, orange pancake all over your face. And I would lie. So she'd say, did you take your makeup off? And I would say yes. And of course, I hadn't. It was all over me. It was all over my white shirt. And then she would say to me, you know, you can quit anytime. You can always stop. You can say, I don't want to do this. And I sort of begrudgingly was like, OK, I'll go take my makeup off. Like, I knew that it was more of a complicated threat than it was a choice. So, yeah. I mean, it was work. It was real work. And I loved the part of that that got me respect, that gave me community, that made me part of a big family. And then there were parts of it that I didn't like so much.

GROSS: So you supported the family for a while. Did that put a lot of pressure on you?

FOSTER: I think my mom was very aware that that was unusual and that would put pressure on me, so she kind of sold it differently. You know, she would say, well, you know, you do one job, but then, you know, your sister does another job, and we all participate. We're all doing a job, and we're all - this is all part of the family. And, you know, I think that was her way of, A, making my brothers and sisters not feel like somehow they were beholden to me or to my brother who also was an actor and, you know, not having pressure on me, but also helping her ego a bit 'cause I think that was hard for her, to feel that she was being taken care of by a child.

GROSS: Well, it is unusual.

FOSTER: Yes, unusual. And, you know, you - there's two things that can happen as a child actor. One is you develop resilience and you come up with a plan and a way to survive intact, and there are real advantages to that in life. And I've really - I really feel grateful for the advantages that that's given me, the benefits that that's given me. Or the other is you totally fall apart and you can't take it, and you - you know, you really have psychological problems when you get older.

GROSS: And maybe drug problems, too, because it's so - I mean, I've not experienced it. But it seems to be very challenging to survive that, as desirable as it might be to outsiders.

FOSTER: It is. And, you know, there's lots of things you're built for and things you're not built for. And, you know, I always say the analogy is like if you're an astronaut. You know, some people can do zero G and some people just can't. You know, some people are fine with it. They find it freeing, and it's lovely and they feel light. They like the solitude of being in space. And other people are like, I'm going crazy here and I need to see people, and I just want to throw up all the time. So I happen to be one of those people who was able to find resilience and was able to use it to become - use the challenge, in some ways, to become a deeper person.

GROSS: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll be back. My guest is Jodie Foster. Her new film, which is in French, is called "A Private Life." It opens in select theaters January 16 and opens more widely on January 30. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF ALEXANDRE DESPLAT'S "FLORIDA")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Jodie Foster. She stars in the new film "A Private Life." She began her career as a child actor at the age of 3 and appeared in commercials, TV shows and then films.

You were mauled by a lion at...

FOSTER: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Age 9. I read that, but I - what was - what happened? What - was it on a - was this on a shoot?

FOSTER: Yeah. It was an accident. I was working with a lion who I loved and - but worked with every day - it was an old lion, had no teeth, very old - on a Disney movie. And they kept them in zoo structures at night, but they hadn't put enough security on them. So at - kids at night, in the middle of the night would come and shoot BB guns at the lions. There were two other lions. One was a stand-in lion, and one was, like, a stunt lion. So they let the - one of the...

GROSS: Were they in the union?

FOSTER: Exactly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's a whole, you know, animal training thing that we do in the film business. And so the trainer couldn't get the old lion to work, so they - he just wouldn't move. And you can't make a 500-pound lion do anything, so they got the stand-in lion. And the stand-in lion worked all day, and we were ending the day going up a hillside. I think they might have been tugging him with a - guiding him with a piano wire, which is a thin filament. And I guess he snapped. I mean, he came around. He picked me up by the hip and shook me like I was...

GROSS: Wow. He picked you up, like, in his mouth?

FOSTER: Yeah. Yeah. He held me horizontally and then flipped me around and shook me. So I watched the entire film crew run in the opposite direction - sideways. And...

GROSS: Oh my God. To get you help or to run away from the lion?

FOSTER: To run away from the lion. And then I remember...

GROSS: Showing...

FOSTER: ...Thinking...

GROSS: ...Great courage.

FOSTER: Yes. And then I remember thinking, oh, this must be an earthquake. I knew about earthquakes. I grew up in LA, so I knew about earthquakes. And then I guess...

GROSS: Wait. Wait. Are you saying you didn't know you were in the lion's mouth?

FOSTER: No. I guess I was - you know, it's a shocking thing that happened. I had no idea what was happening. The only thing I remember is - I remember his mane coming around my - when I looked down, I could see his mane coming around. And then the next thing I knew, it was an earthquake, and then he dropped me. And - the trainer said, drop it, and the lion was so well-trained that he dropped me. And then as I was rolling down the hill, he came running after me, and then he put his paw on me like, oh, I got this. What do we do next?

So, yeah, it was a scary moment. The good news is I'm fine. I have, you know, some scars that are very delicate and dainty and have moved all over my body because apparently, that's what happens when you get older. Your scars move around your body. And I'm not afraid of lions. In fact, whenever I see a lion - I went to Africa not too long ago, and everybody else was terrified. They were petrified because the lions were so close, and they were eating prey and all of this. And I was like, oh, makes me want to go out there and ride on top of them.

GROSS: Did it make you think that acting was unsafe?

FOSTER: No. No. I - accidents happen, and I think my mom was really smart. I think she - you know, she talked to me. And she said, you know, it wasn't the lion's fault, and I understood that. I went back and worked with the lion. I was in a hospital for, you know, three or four days or something. I - they determined I was OK, so they - I went back and I worked with the lion. And I think that was the right thing to do, which is, you know - I was very lucky. And they're animals, and we love them. And, you know, we - you go through the procedures to make sure that you're safe. And I worked with lots of other - you know, I worked with camels. I worked with pigs. I worked with lots of other animals. I think she did the right thing, which is just to make sure that I got through it.

GROSS: That's amazing resilience.

FOSTER: Yeah, I guess. You know, I guess that's a good thing, that I'm trained as a person and as an actor to deaden myself somehow to some of my feelings that might get in the way. But when you say it out loud, it sounds like there will be psychological ramifications down the line, which I'm sure is true, you know? I think there's a part of me that has been made resilient by what I've done for a living and has been able to control my emotions in order to do that in a role. And also, that leads to problems when you're older. You know, those survival skills get in the way, and you have to learn how to ditch them when you get older and they're not serving you anymore.

GROSS: I think your mother sometimes exercised, like, such good judgment in terms of choosing roles for you, though some people might find that judgment very questionable when it comes to "Taxi Driver." But that's one of my very favorite films. It's such a deep psychological study of the characters in it.

FOSTER: Yeah. I couldn't be more grateful to have - I mean, what luck to have been part of that, our golden age of cinema in the '70s, some of the greatest movies that America ever made, the greatest filmmakers, auteur films that were really talking about our times in ways that - challenging it in ways that had never happened before. So I couldn't be happier that she chose these roles for me. And a lot of it was - yes, it was a vicarious effort on her part, that, you know, she wanted something from me that she couldn't achieve in her life. And what that was was respect, meaning and to be a part of an art movement, to resist being objectified and to make films that matter and that would make - that would matter to women of the next generation. And, you know, my mom, who grew up in a prefeminist time, just didn't - she didn't have those opportunities to be able to play a part in the next role that women were going to play.

GROSS: Did she approve of feminism once it, you know, started really blossoming?

FOSTER: Oh, yes. Yes. And filled with mixed messages, like everybody of that era. You know, there was - it was always very confusing, which - you know, anybody who's my age probably has the same stories of their mom saying, you can do anything. You can be a doctor. You can be a lawyer, you know? But, you know, make sure you don't ever make a man mad.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: OK? Because - you know, try to manipulate him and say nice things about - you know, flatter him rather than make him mad because making a man mad is dangerous. You know, there was this - just a lot of mixed messages of, you know, you can do anything, but you won't be able to take care of yourself. So who are you going to marry that's going to take care of you? And, you know, that's what we do as kids, is you rebel against your parents for the things that you feel are not true to your life and that you feel are all fear. They're just throwing fear at you, and you reject that to become your own person.

GROSS: So did you ever take her advice of always flattering men?

FOSTER: No. But I certainly knew, when there was a drunken guy in a bar who - you know, I knew to say something nice and try to change the subject and, you know, leave as quickly as I could. I think, like any woman who wants to save their life, we know that historically, we are in danger.

GROSS: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll be back. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jodie Foster. Her new movie is called "A Private Life," and it opens in select theaters January 16 and more widely on the 30. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF HOWARD SHORE'S "MAIN TITLE")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Jodie Foster. Her new film is called "A Private Life." She plays a Freudian psychoanalyst who's compelled to investigate the mysterious death of a patient. The film is set in Paris, and Foster speaks French throughout. She's had a six-decade career which started at the age of three. She won Oscars for "Silence Of The Lambs" and "The Accused" and, more recently, was nominated for an Oscar for her work on the film "Nyad" and won an Emmy for her role in the latest season of HBO's "True Detective." She's been in over 50 movies, including "The Silence Of The Lambs," "Contact," "The Accused," "Panic Room" and "Taxi Driver." She took a break from acting to attend Yale. When we left off, we were talking about her role in "Taxi Driver," the now classic '70s film that was written by Paul Schrader and directed by Martin Scorsese.

So I want to focus a little on "Taxi Driver," since next month marks the 50th anniversary of its release. So let's start with a clip.

FOSTER: Amazing.

GROSS: Yeah. And this is an example of your mother being brilliant in accepting the part for you and of being controversial because she accepted the part for you.

FOSTER: Right. Right.

GROSS: 'Cause you play a 12-year-old, and you were 12 when you shot this. And you are what would then be called a prostitute and today a sex worker who has a pimp, played by Harvey Keitel. And Robert De Niro plays Travis Bickle, the taxi driver. And De Niro sees this, and so he wants to buy some time with you to save you. He kind of has a savior complex. So here's a scene where, you know, he has tried to talk with you and rescue you, take him away from the pimp. But you don't want to be rescued, so he ends up taking you to a diner. He's trying to convince you to go back home, be with your parents and live - just live a better life. And you speak first.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "TAXI DRIVER")

FOSTER: (As Iris) Why do you want me to go back to my parents? I mean, they hate me. Why do you think I split in the first place? There ain't nothing there.

ROBERT DE NIRO: (As Travis) Yeah, but you can't live like this. It's a hell. A girl should live at home.

FOSTER: (As Iris) Didn't you ever hear of women's lib?

DE NIRO: (As Travis) What do you mean, women's lib? You - you're a young girl. You should be at home now. You should be dressed up. You should be going out with boys. You should be going to school, you know, that kind of stuff.

FOSTER: (As Iris) God, are you square?

DE NIRO: (As Travis) Hey. I'm not square. You're the one that's square. You're full of s***, man. What are you talking about? You walk out with those creeps and lowlifes and degenerates out on the street, and you sell your little [expletive] for nothing, man? For some lowlife pimp stands in a hole? I'm the - I'm square? You're the one that's square, man.

GROSS: I think Paul Schrader doesn't ever get quite enough credit for writing this. I mean, people who really know movies, like, think he's made terrific movies, but - Scorsese did a brilliant job directing it, but Paul Schrader did a brilliant job writing it. You know, God's lonely man and all of Travis' monologues. Did you get to talk to Schrader about the screenplay?

FOSTER: Well, you know, at 12 years old, my mom - if you saw Paul Schrader at that time, he really was Travis Bickle, right? He wore that army jacket, and he mumbled a lot. And he stayed up all night and stayed up for hours and hours at a time. My mom didn't want me anywhere near Paul Schrader.

GROSS: (Laughter).

FOSTER: She was like, don't talk to him, whatever you do.

GROSS: Well, that's funny 'cause it's like, you can play a prostitute who's 12 years old in the movie, but don't talk to the person who wrote this.

FOSTER: Well, yeah. Look, I was an actor. And I finally understood through working with Robert De Niro, 'cause he really took the time to show me what acting was, that it wasn't just saying lines that somebody else wrote - that it actually was creating a character. I didn't know that before I was 12.

GROSS: How did your mother feel about playing, you know, a 12-year-old sex worker? And how did you feel about - how much did you understand what that meant? And also, the film has some pretty explicit violence.

FOSTER: Yeah. I mean, I think that my mom knew he was a great artist. I mean, she - we loved "Mean Streets." We saw it three or four times. My mom saw that I was interested in art and cinema and took me to every foreign film she could find, mostly because she wanted me to hear other languages. But, you know, we went to very dark, interesting German films that lasted eight hours long and, you know, we saw all the French New Wave movies. And we had long conversations about movies and what they meant. And I think that she respected me.

GROSS: This is before you were 12?

FOSTER: Yeah. And some of them were inappropriate. You know, some of - there were moments I remember where she'd be like, why don't you go get - let's go get popcorn, because there were moments in the film that were not appropriate for a kid.

GROSS: Too sexual?

FOSTER: Yeah. Yeah. I remember seeing "Last Tango In Paris" and my mom going like, oh, maybe this is a good time for you to get an - go get a Coke.

GROSS: Did adults in the ladies' room ever look at you and say, what are you doing here?

FOSTER: Yeah. I - but I also think they admired her. I think they knew that I was - I think precocious is a weird word. I think I did have a skill that was beyond my years, and I had a strong sense of self. So, you know, I'm not very good at math. I'm not terribly good at science. But I did have a - almost like an idiot savant ability to understand emotions and character that was beyond my years.

GROSS: But you've also said that it was hard for you to express emotion unless you were acting.

FOSTER: Yes, and thank God I was acting.

GROSS: (Laughter).

FOSTER: So it gave me an outlet that I would not have had. I had to develop. It was a sink-or-swim. I had to develop an emotional side. I had to cut off my brain sometimes to play characters in order to be good, and I wanted to be good. You know, I - if I was going to do something, I wanted to be excellent. So in order to do that, I had to learn emotions. And I had to learn not only how to access them, but also how to control them so that I could give them intention.

GROSS: You've said De Niro stayed in character...

FOSTER: Yeah.

GROSS: ...During the whole shoot and before it, too. So what he would do is take you to a diner and not necessarily say anything.

FOSTER: Yeah. Yeah. He had a very Travis Bickle personality during that shoot, so he was pretty boring. He was very awkward and very boring, and it was difficult for - you know, I was a 12-year-old kid. I was like, oh God. Here comes this guy again. He's taking me to a diner, and he's going to not talk for 20 minutes. And I would talk to the waiters. And we also would run lines. So we ran the lines, sort of a normal rehearsal process where we ran the lines.

And I think by the third time, he started going off and improvising around the lines and encouraging me to do the same and trying to show me how to dip in. So, you know, he would go off on a tangent, some long improvised tangent. And then I had to find the opportunity for me to place my next line to when was the right time. And really talking about reactions, you know, how does that make you feel? And he was the first person that ever took the time to treat me like an actor.

GROSS: Was that fun for you, doing those improvs?

FOSTER: Oh, it was amazing. It was just this huge eureka moment. I'll never forget it. I remember being excited and being kind of sweaty and my heart racing when I came home to the hotel room and came up the elevator. And I said to my mom, like, wow, I finally get it. Like, I really get it. And I want to be a part of this.

And I remember that summer specifically because we were in New York City, so of course, we saw a million plays. You know, I saw "Pippin" and "A Little Night Music" and "Chicago." And, you know, just all these - "Equus," all these amazing plays. And we also went to see movies. You know, we saw "Panic In Needle Park," and we saw "Straw Dogs" and all those films of that era. And I suddenly was like, oh, I want to be a part of this amazing thing that I feel passionate about. And it was just - it all happened in a moment.

GROSS: We have to take another short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jodie Foster. And her new film, which is in French, is called "A Private Life." It opens January 16 in select theaters and on the 30th more widely. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF AWREEOH SONG, "CAN'T BRING ME DOWN")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Jodie Foster. She stars in the new film "A Private Life." When we left off, we were talking about her role in Martin Scorsese's 1976 film "Taxi Driver," for which she earned her first Oscar nomination, playing a 12-year-old sex worker when Foster was 12.

So you had to undergo a psychological exam because you were underage...

FOSTER: Yes.

GROSS: ...Before doing this, you know, very adult kind of role. What was the evaluation like?

FOSTER: Oh, the evaluation was - actually, it was suggested by my lawyer because they were trying to stop me from playing the role. The Board of Education had questions about it. They had just gotten a lot of flak because Brooke Shields had just been in the Louis Malle movie "Pretty Baby." And there was a lot of flak about that, kind of, you know, the sexuality of the movie and her being served naked on a cake, stuff like that. And so my lawyer, who was Pat Brown, right - so that's Jerry Brown's dad. That's a very cool bit of trivia.

GROSS: Oh, wow. Oh, OK.

FOSTER: He suggested that we do a psychological evaluation, so they took me to a child psychologist. And, you know, the guy just asked me a bunch of questions like, what food do you like? I was like, Chinese. You know, what movies do you like? And I told him. And very simple questions. And I guess by that they determined that I was just a normal person, and I would be fine, and that I understood the difference between acting and who I was as a person.

GROSS: You know, you mentioned Brooke Shields in "Pretty Baby." She's very sexualized in that. And you're sexualized in the sense that you're a prostitute in it. But at the same time, you're not acting sexy.

FOSTER: Right.

GROSS: Do you know what I mean?

FOSTER: Yes.

GROSS: You're very like, hey, I'm doing my job. You paid for me, so, like, let's do it.

FOSTER: (Laughter).

GROSS: You can leave after that. You know, you're just like...

FOSTER: Right.

GROSS: ...Let's get this done, which is kind of interesting.

FOSTER: Yeah, it was. That's why Scorsese wanted me for the part. I mean, my mom was not convinced. I remember going in for the meeting and her saying to him, look, you know her. And I came in my school uniform, with a blue blazer that had a crest on it.

GROSS: (Laughter) That's too much.

FOSTER: Peter Pan collar and, you know, knee socks. And she said, well, listen, if you think that she can play this role, then great. So I think he liked the contrast. I think he liked the ambiguity of that, of seeing somebody who's a child, you know, in some ways who is sexualized as a woman, but isn't a victim.

GROSS: You had been in movies longer than Scorsese was making them...

FOSTER: (Laughter) Yes.

GROSS: ...Or De Niro and Keitel had been acting. Did you ever give them advice?

FOSTER: (Laughter) No, I didn't give them any advice. But I did make them feel more comfortable. I think they were both very nervous. You know, Robert De Niro, very nervous when there's a moment where I have to, you know, pull down his fly. And in fact, they got my sister, who was 21. And I guess she looks a little bit like me, but she's the same size as me. And they had to bring her on in order to actually physically do the shot where she has to unzip his fly. And he was just so nervous. They were both so nervous that they kept giggling (laughter) when we were doing the rehearsals. And then De Niro would be like, no, I got this, I got this.

And then he would start talking to me and say, well, you know, maybe you can put your arm around my shoulder, and then he would start laughing. And I made them feel comfortable and go like, look, here, how about this? How about I put my hand here, you put your hand there, we do this like this? I mean, kind of like, you know, nowadays when you do sex scenes or any kind of scene that there's physical contact, we have what's called - wow, what are they called now? They're called...

GROSS: Intimacy coordinator.

FOSTER: Intimacy coordinator. Exactly. I never had an intimacy coordinator until I did "True Detective." And there I was, you know, almost 60 years old and going like, wow, this is amazing. Where have you intimacy coordinators been my whole life, when, you know, we actors were just busy working it out together, you know, trying to say, like, how can we make this very awkward thing not so awkward?

GROSS: So I just want to say again that "Taxi Driver" celebrates its 50th anniversary in February. And if you haven't seen the film, it's so good (laughter).

FOSTER: It's a great, great movie.

GROSS: So you might not want to talk about this, but did you ever feel like if the #MeToo movement had been around when whatever happened that you would be a part of that movement?

FOSTER: You know, I'm not 100% sure why. And I have discussed this with some other actors, where I see what happened in the #MeToo movement. And it's appalling. And I was completely unaware of that. And how come I didn't - you know, how come I never fell into that category? And what happened? What saved me? And I've really had to examine that. Like, how did I get saved? There were microaggressions, of course, that are - you know, anybody who's in the workplace has, you know, misogynist microaggressions. Like, that's just a part of being a woman, right? But what kept me from having those bad experiences, those terrible experiences?

And what I came to believe - and you can tell me if you think this is wrong - is that I had a certain amount of power by the time I was, like, 12. So by the time I had my first Oscar nomination, I was part of a different category of people that had power. And I was too dangerous to touch. I could have, you know, ruined people's careers, or I could have called Uncle, so I wasn't on the block.

It also might be just my personality, you know, that I am a headfirst person, and I approach the world in a headfirst way. It's very difficult to emotionally manipulate me because I don't operate with the - my emotions on the surface. Predators use whatever they can in order to manipulate and get people to do what they want them to do, and that's much easier when the person is younger, when the person is weaker, when the person has no power. That's precisely what predatory behavior is about, is using power in order to diminish people in order to dominate them. And, you know, if you're a 50-year-old man, it's not hard to do that to a 13-year-old because you're going to be dominant. You're going to, you know, know how to talk to people, you know, so I got very lucky to be protected as a young person by my mom and by the good men around me that cared about me, that were father figures that didn't want anything bad to ever happen to me.

GROSS: You asked if I agreed with your perspective, and I certainly do. But I'm wondering, you know, you had played - even, you know, even as a kid and certainly in "Taxi Driver" - like, girls who could talk back, girls who could talk kind of tough, girls who could challenge. Did that help you in life? - 'cause you knew what it was to talk that way.

FOSTER: Yeah, I guess so. I guess so, yeah. I guess I was empowered by the people I played in some ways. And I also was born a powerful person. Don't ask me why.

GROSS: (Laughter) OK.

FOSTER: Sometime - you know, I'm five-foot-three, and every once in a while, when somebody's doing some shenanigans, I get out of my car, I slam the door, and I say, show me your license.

GROSS: Really?

FOSTER: And shockingly, people do it, or they, you know - or they listen to me because I played a powerful person on TV or because I was born that way, or I don't know. You know, maybe that's the Karen in me that believes that somehow I should be listened to. I really should be listened to. I deserve to be listened to. You know, I do think that that has a lot to do - who I am in the public sphere - the personality that I was born with but also that I had to develop in order to stay safe and to stay powerful has kept me away from a lot of bad stories.

GROSS: Can you give an example of a time you slammed the door and said, show me your license?

FOSTER: Oh. Well, yeah, it was a real thing, I suppose, where I saw somebody being bullied, in a car situation.

GROSS: Yeah.

FOSTER: And I got out of the car and was like, OK, you stand over there, and you stand over there. I want you 10 feet apart - you know, that kind of thing.

GROSS: Wow.

FOSTER: But all five-three of me. But yeah, I remember being in a situation. I was on a - you know, not to be named. I was on a movie set with a, you know, powerful, out-of-control actor. And he called me to his home, and there were some - lots of problems happening on set. And I just called you here because I wanted to tell you that I think your behavior on set's been terrible, and I feel like you're not participating in the movie. You're not doing your best work. And I don't know what all this school stuff is that you're doing and all of this other stuff that you're concentrating on that's not the movie, but I'm really disappointed in you, and I think that you need to be more a part of things. And what do you think about that?

I waited, like, five minutes. I swallowed, and I said, I think that you've made very few movies, that you don't have any experience. I've made a lot of them. I think you have egregious behavior on set. And you may not understand what my education means to me. That's fine that you're ignorant. But it really doesn't - you know, and I went on this, like - I don't know where it came from, but I went on this super, you know, articulate rant. And at the end of it, there was a pause, and he said, OK, I'll meet you downstairs.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: Like he was like, oh, whatever, you know? And so, I guess, when I look back at that moment, I'd be like, oh, was that - oh. What was going to happen there? What did he think was going to happen when he said all the horrible mean things to me? Did he think I was going to cry? Did he think I was going to go like, oh, you're right, I'm terrible, I'm so bad? Like, what did he think was going to happen?

GROSS: Probably, that's what he thought was going to happen.

FOSTER: Yeah. Yeah. And I have had other circumstances where, you know, a director, for example, during the scene was, you know, screaming at me, calling me terrible names, you know, and trying to get a reaction out of me. And I don't react that way. I say things like, wow, I'm sorry you feel that way. I respond with my head when somebody comes at me with a knife.

GROSS: That's really interesting. We have to take another short break here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jodie Foster, and her new film, which is in French, is called "A Private Life." It opens January 16 in select theaters and on the 30th more widely. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF LOUIS SCLAVIS' "DANS LA NUIT")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Jodie Foster. Her new movie is called "A Private Life."

So I want to go back to 2013 in our retrospective, when you won a Golden Globe lifetime achievement award. And this acceptance speech was a speech that a lot of people took notice of. So I'm just going to play this clip.

FOSTER: Sure.

GROSS: OK. Here we go.

(SOUNDBITE OF 2013 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS)

FOSTER: I hope that you're not disappointed that there won't be a big coming out speech tonight, because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the Stone Age, in those...

(CHEERING)

FOSTER: ...Those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family, coworkers and then gradually proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now, apparently, I'm told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: And, you know, you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo child. No, I'm sorry. That's just not me. It never was, and it never will be. But please don't cry, because my reality show would be so boring. I would have to make out with Marion Cotillard or I'd have to spank Daniel Craig's bottom, you know, just to stay on the air. It's, you know, not bad work if you can get it though.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you'd had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe then you, too, might value privacy above all else.

GROSS: OK, so...

FOSTER: Wow. That was a lot.

GROSS: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: But you really tease it as, like, I'm going to come out as gay. And I really like what you said about people expect you, if you're in the public eye and you're gay, that you have to issue a press release about it.

FOSTER: Well, I don't know that that's just about your sexuality. I think that that's what people - they expect celebrity culture. And I did not want to participate in celebrity culture. I wanted to make movies that I loved. I wanted to give everything of myself on screen, and I wanted to survive intact by having a life.

GROSS: And was that in part because, you know, you're a private person and that's the way you are, but also because you didn't want to come out as gay because it would have inspired so much gossip and distraction and maybe a loss of roles?

FOSTER: What's important to consider is that I grew up in a different time, where people couldn't be who they were and we didn't have the kinds of freedoms that we have now. And I look at my son's generation. And bless them, you know, that they have a kind of justice that we just didn't have access to. And I did the best I could. I had a big plan in mind of making films that could make people better. And that's all I wanted to do was make movies. I didn't want to be a public figure or a pioneer or any of those things. And I benefited from all of the pioneers that came before me that did that hard work of, you know, having tomatoes thrown at them and being unsafe. And I thank them.

But we don't all have to have the same role. And I think my role was making movies that mattered, creating female characters that were human characters and creating a huge body of work and then being able to look back at the pattern of that body of work and go like, oh, wow, Jodie was - she played a doctor. She played a mother. She played a scientist. She played an astronaut. She played - you know, she killed all the bad guys. You know, she did all of those things and, you know, had a lesbian wife and had two kids and, you know, was a complete person that had a whole other life. And I think that will be valuable someday down the line, that I was able to keep my life intact and leave a legacy.

GROSS: Jodie Foster, I've enjoyed this so much. Thank you so much for coming back to the show.

FOSTER: Thank you.

GROSS: And good luck with the new movie. And I hope we talk again.

FOSTER: Me too.

GROSS: Jodie Foster stars in the new film "A Private Life." It opens in select theaters Friday and opens more widely on the 30th.

Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, we'll talk about Marco Rubio. He once called President Donald Trump a con artist. Now as secretary of state, he's defending policies he once opposed and overseeing deep cuts to the very foreign aid programs he once supported. New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins will talk about his new article on Rubio's political transformation. I hope you'll join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair. FRESH AIR's executive producers are Danny Miller and Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Anna Bauman, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our cohost is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

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