3 Questions for Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster’s latest film, A Private Life, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews. In it, she finally has a chance to display her real-life mastery of French as an American psychoanalyst living in Paris who’s convinced that one of her patients was murdered. Setting out to investigate, Foster discovers a lot about people she thought she knew, and herself too, as the mystery unravels with tears, laughs, and more than a few surprises.

Foster had her first memorable role in a suntan oil commercial when she was three, and then went on to stardom on screens big and small, earning Academy Awards for The Silence of the Lambs and The Accused. Just when it seemed she might be slowing down after celebrating her 60th birthday, she scored an Emmy for her powerful performance in True Detective: Night Country.

Jodie admits she feels more than a little connection to A Private Life, including the title, since in many ways it mirrors her own determination to keep what she does off-screen out of the public eye.

 Jeanne Wolf: You had to draw on your fluent French to play a woman who uncovers secrets — including a few about herself.

Jodie Foster: It was a big challenge for me, even though I do speak French. I was worried about it. But I think it added something to the performance because she’s worried that she can’t communicate properly, and I could feel that insecurity. What’s interesting about this murder mystery is you realize she’s been investigating herself, uncovering the parts of her that she hasn’t been willing to reveal in her own relationships. She has some secrets.

As for my secrets, I’m going to tell you something crazy. It’s a little bit of a cruel joke that I ended up being an actor. It is the last thing that I should have done. I don’t have the personality. I’ve had to adapt because I wanted to be good at it. I was definitely born an intellectual person who lives through the brain first and the emotions second. There’s a lot of emotion in acting whether it’s comedy or tragedy.

I don’t think you can really trust how people see you and even how you see yourself. It’s important to be present and supportive of your friends, though there were times in my life when I failed. Thank God, as I’ve gotten older, I’m much less self-involved.

JW: You’ve often said that having children gave you the “private life” you’ve always longed for. What’s your approach to being a mom, and what was yours like?

JF: I have two different kids, one who is very outgoing and is an actor and loves attention and likes to be the guy that puts the lampshade on his head. And I have one who is very shy and is really uncomfortable in the limelight. I want to protect them both. I didn’t bring them on to movie sets. I wanted my actor to know who he was without the glare of public attention and to really have a centered idea of what he had done on his own.

My mother and I had lots of disagreements. She was controlling and opinionated, and she was strong and wanted her way. And I loved that about her. I don’t feel like there was anything that we didn’t discuss or straighten out in some way. And I got to be the last person she saw before she passed away. And that was a promise that I made to her. I got to keep that promise: I would show up. And, you know, there’s just nothing richer and more important than that.

JW: You’ve been working on screen since you were very young. Do you worry about what’s happening to “the biz” and movie theaters?

JF: Massive changes have happened in the industry, but as an artist, I don’t care even if people are seeing my performance on an Apple Watch. It is sad for those who grew up in movie theaters sitting in the dark in front of a big screen. We have nostalgia for that. But I want to embrace the future, and I think some of the best work is happening in streaming in terms of real narrative, stories with a beginning, middle, and end.

Sixty was like the magic age for me, where I suddenly woke up and was like, “Wow, I don’t care about any of the things that were causing me anxiety and suffering before.” Suddenly I was just grateful for the time I got and what I’d accomplished. I just wanted more of the good things that I loved, and my life got simpler. If you live long enough, you get all the life lessons.

This article is featured in the January/February 2026 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.