Jodie Foster Quotes

1. It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me.


2. But the reason I became, why I wanted to be in the business was because there was Midnight Cowboy.

3. I think "destiny" is just a fancy word for a psychological pattern.


4. I'd like to be Dakota Fanning when I get young.

5. Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable.

6. I want to be inspiring to myself, to my kids, my family, and my friends.

7. I think an artist's responsibility is more complex than people realize.

8. Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.




9. But now I really don't want to work unless I really, really care about a project.

10. I am the luckiest filmmaker I know.

11. By the first week of shooting, you know exactly where your film is heading based on the psychology of your director.

12. I didn't have any ambition to produce big mainstream popcorn movies.

13. I don't know why people think child actresses in particular are screwed up. I see kids everywhere who are totally bored. I've never been bored a day in my life.

14. I don't know if I see myself as really an action hero, but I like doing physical movies and I like doing movies where the writing is very lean.




15. I fantasize about having a manual job where I can come home at night, read a book and not feel responsible for what will happen the next day.

16. I had to take my makeup off at work every night. I wasn't allowed to do it at home because my mom said that when your work day is done, you're done with work.





17. I guess I've played a lot of victims, but that's what a lot of the history of women is about.

18. I have, in some ways, saved characters that have been marginalized by society by playing them - and having them still have dignity and still survive, still get through it.

19. I love European movies and I kind of grew up on European films.



20. I love more than anything looking at a movie scene by scene and seeing the intention behind it.

21. I spent a lot of time not in school, so I didn't have deep relationships with kids my own age.

22. I prefer to commit 100 per cent to a movie and make fewer films, because it takes over your life.





23. I think Anna and the King is a look at Asia from the Asian perspective, reflecting the Asian experience, which is very rare.

24. I wish people could get over the hang-up of subtitles, although at the same time, you know, that's kind of why I'm kind of pro dubbing.




25. I think anybody over 30 plays parents because it happens in your thirties and so that's kind of a natural progression. But I'm definitely drawn to it. It's probably the most intense, passionate thing that happens to you as you get older.

26. I wish that I spoke more languages. I speak a couple languages, but not well enough to really dub myself. French is really the only one, and it's a difficult thing.

27. I'm kind of a chatterbox and I talk really fast.

28. I've always had this idea that I wanted movies to make people better not worse.

29. My kids are young and my life with them is really stimulating and really full and significant.





30. Knowing what paint a painter uses or having an understanding of where he was in the history of where he came from doesn't hurt your appreciation of the painting.

31. Part of me longs to do a job where there's not a gray area.



32. The best reason to make a film is that you feel passionately about it.


33. So, yes, there's nothing I love more than listening to directors talk about their movies.

34. Well, I certainly was exposed to and learned to appreciate the work of great directors early on. As a kid, my mother used to take me to see really interesting arty films in Los Angeles.

35. The movies I made when I was 14 or 15, I have a hard time looking at those. Those were the awkward years. I don't know if anybody can look at something they did when they were 14 and not wince.

36. You develop a third eye where you kind of know where they are in a room at all times but no matter how vigilant you are as a parent, at some point, you'll look around a room and can't find them and there's a searing pain that goes through your body.

37. Love and respect are the most important aspects of parenting, and of all relationships.





38. I've gone through phases of just forgiving your parents for not being as young as they used to be or not being able to do the things they could do before, and I think this film is about forgiveness. It has a real fondness and a real bitterness as well towards family members.

39. Every time I go to leave for work he'll say: "Are you going to be an astronaut today and find space aliens?"… I'll say: "No, honey. No spacesuit for me today."







40. There's a kind of intensity that she has, and a real focus… I can glean from her personality that she's going to have a very long career and is going to be a very centered person. You just look at her and go: "Wow, this kid has really got it together", and it's just so nice to see.

41. In a post-9/11 world, everybody is looking over their shoulder and wondering if the next guy is the one who is going to take you down.

42. It becomes this weird reality - 12 hours a day stuck inside this tube. Half the time the (background actors) were really sleeping. It was like a real airplane, so they were all knocked out.

43. It was like working on a cruise ship.

44. I don't need to be Tom Cruise. I just need to work forever.

45. I think that women are more interesting in their forties.

46. Actors become actors because they loved entertaining their family by putting on the lampshade and dancing around as a kid…That's not my personality. For me, the fun part of making movies is seeing it as a director sees it. I like the architecture of movies. I like knowing what's coming and working to set that up.

47. Claustrophobia makes it the perfect setting.

48. He is the foremost reason I wanted to make the movie. I'd never been right for one of his movies.




49. It's kind of about a vigilante, somebody who has been the victim of a crime and who can't quite get over it and then finds herself mowing people down.

50. Russell, I think, it was a better performance than what he has ever given.

51. Each brings his prejudices to the table. At first, she thinks he's a heathen and a barbarian. Then, he reminds her that her native England has invaded other countries, and the English believe their way is the only way. As they grow to understand each other, it becomes a love story.

52. That was heartbreaking, to have that fall apart, two weeks before shooting.

53. But these things, you stick with them, work with them, and they bubble up again, eventually.

54. Nobody believes me...She goes through a very interesting journey in the film. One of the most challenging that I've ever done, from trying to keep it together and trying not to become hysterical, to as time goes by, and she starts fearing for her daughter's safety and what might be happening to her, and sort of leading herself in some ways to a kind of madness.

55. It's my job… I wouldn't not promote my movie and you want to get out there and tell people what it's about and to communicate why you loved it.

56. It's a primal thing, this very unconscious place with the fears of what can happen to your children and will you be able to keep them safe. I like all the different levels of fear that she goes through, from feeling like her daughter's out there somewhere, to worrying that somebody is hurting her. Then there's that place of utter desperation where you wonder if you're completely insane. Then there's that final turn, when she turns into a robot who will take anyone down.

57. I'm not making any rules about it… I don't think you really have to. Who knows, maybe I'm retired now! Maybe I'll never work again.





58. You have to make a big effort to try to have a life, and that's important to you only if you spent your entire childhood not having one.

59. And you didn't headline movies at 20. You were able to have a career that built little by little by little. It wasn't just like: "OK, throw them up there, make them a superstar, pay them $10 million a movie and then watch them self-destruct and you don't care because all you need is the three years (of fame)". It was just a different set of rules.

60. They're not your movie star; they're not your big names…There's something about their work and their inner life that I just love and am so attracted to.




61. Anna changes. That's something that neither Deborah Kerr or Irene Dunne could do. They had to start off soft and stay that way. In our version, she's sort of tough and stubborn, but as time goes on she softens.

62. It doesn't feel like a long time to me. My life is full. I have new priorities. I've been working a long time, so now I do movies for a different reason than I did for much of my career.


63. I can never work again for a bad person with a huge ego.

64. I think it works better with a woman, which is why I decided to do it… men know how to separate themselves from their child. Women lose that ability.





65. I stand to make more money doing that sequel than I've ever made in my life.

66. (on advantages for actresses over 40) They've lived longer, they're more confident about their choices and they don't have to be hip and cool anymore, which I think is a godsend - you make really bad choices when you are trying to be hip.

67. (on being a mother) What I didn't realize is how completely consumed I would be by my sons. I didn't know that the rest of my life would become so little a priority.





68. As time goes on, I will play characters who get older: I don't want to be some Botoxed weirdo.

69. (on the film adaptation of Sin City) That was so painfully cartoonish I was offended. I don't know how you enjoy or laugh about a child abduction and molestation. What part of that sentence is funny? I can't get beyond that. I don't know if everyone understands the impact of that movie's message.

70. Being understood is not the most essential thing in life.

71. (on her role in Taxi Driver (1976), when she was 13) I spent four hours with a shrink trying to prove I was normal enough to play a hooker. Does that make sense?

72. It's not my personality to be extroverted emotionally, so acting has been helpful to me.

73. I could tell you the criticism backward and forward about Little Man Tate (1991). But it didn't bother me as long as they were talking about the work and not about "she has fat thighs" or something. But I fared really well with "Tate," so I shouldn't be complaining.

74. (at age 14) Kids talk like sailors now. Adults don't want to know.









75. If I fail, at least I will have failed my way.

76. (on "Foster Child", her brother Buddy Foster's unauthorized biography about her) A cheap cry for attention and money filled with hazy recollections, fantasies and borrowed press releases. Buddy has done nothing but break our mother's heart his whole life.

77. (on devoting more time to parenting her sons than film work) There's something so pure about the ways boys love you.





78. I'm interested in directing movies about situations that I've lived, so they are almost a personal essay about what I've come to believe in.

79. Acting, for me, is exhausting. I'm always more energized by directing. It's more intense to direct. I can pop in and express myself, then pop out again. It's a huge passion for me.

80. I love to see theater but not to work in it. Too messy, and I have a bit of an inferiority complex.





81. I'm nervous every day on a film set. The anxiety of performance is not like anything else because you never know if you'll get there or not. There is an anxiety when it comes to finding the truth.

82. I'm lucky that people do leave me alone. I'm not Madonna. The red carpet is work for me. I work from 9-to-5 and when I get home, I don't want to go back to work by going to an industry event. For me, putting on makeup and a fancy dress is work.

83. I've learned something in the last few years that I really didn't know about myself as an actor. I basically learned how to stay happy. It's important for me to be happy working or I feel resentful. I don't like it. I hate myself. What I know now is that I really need to love the director. I need him to be a good parent. And then I will lie down on the train tracks for him and go to the ends of the earth for him.

84. Motherhood doesn't mean I don't have a creative side that I need to nourish. It doesn't mean I don't have independence from them. I'd be a crazy person if I didn't.

85. (on her role as the child prostitute Iris in Taxi Driver - 1976) At first I didn't want to do the part, but only because I was afraid my friends would tease me afterwards. I thought: "Wow, they've got to be kidding". It was a great part for a 21-year old, but I couldn't believe that they were offering it to me. I was the Disney kid.



86. (on the making of Taxi Driver - 1976) There was a welfare worker on the set every day and she saw the daily rushes of all my scenes and made sure I wasn't on set when Robert De Niro said a dirty word.

87. (on the making of Taxi Driver - 1976) You rarely have a director like Martin Scorsese or a co-star like Robert De Niro, who rehearses and rehearses until you get the feeling that for the time you're with him he is the character. It's so real it's frightening.




88. (on Taxi Driver - 1976) I think it's one of the finest films that's ever been made in America. It's a statement about America. About violence. About loneliness. Anonymity. Some of the best works are those that have tried to imitate that kind of film, that kind of style. It's just a classic. I felt when I came home every day that I had really accomplished something.

89. (on backing Mel Gibson after his 2006 anti-Semitic comments to a cop while drunk) Is he an anti-Semite? Absolutely not. But, it's no secret that he has always fought a terrible battle with alcoholism. (Mel) was a shining example of how low you can go when you are young and still pull yourself up. He took his recovery very seriously, which is why I know he is strong enough to get through this now.


90. (on her role as the child prostitute Iris in Taxi Driver - 1976) I spent four hours with a shrink to prove that I was normal enough to play a hooker. It was the role that changed my life. For the first time I played something completely different. But I knew the character I had to play - I grew up three blocks away from Hollywood Boulevard and saw prostitutes like Iris every day.

91. I'm an atheist. But I absolutely love religions and the rituals. Even though I don't believe in God. We celebrate pretty much every religion in our family with the kids. They love it, and when they say: "Are we Jewish? or Are we Catholic?" I say: "Well, I'm not, but you can choose when you're 18". But isn't this fun that we do seders and the Advent calendar?

92. I absolutely believe what Ellie believes - that there is no direct evidence, so how could you ask me to believe in God when there's absolutely no evidence that I can see? I do believe in the beauty and the awe-inspiring mystery of the science that's out there that we haven't discovered yet, that there are scientific explanations for phenomena that we call mystical because we don't know any better.


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