Daily Express

‘As I get older the roles are getting better’

There’s a silver lining to hitting 58, says the film veteran. And tomorrow that could win her a Golden Globe

- By Liz Burke

AT SOME point Jodie Foster knew her career would come to this. After the red carpet glamour, countless stunning gowns and front cover makeovers, she anticipate­d the day when she would be offered the part of an older woman.

Not that she is complainin­g. Because her latest role – real-life criminal defence lawyer Nancy Hollander in The Mauritania­n – has won her a nomination for Best Actress at the Golden Globes Awards, which will be held (virtually) tomorrow night.

To play Hollander, an internatio­nal powerhouse of many decades with a mane of silver hair and a face full of wrinkles, Jodie did what few actresses in Hollywood are willing to do – actually allowed the camera to add years to her appearance.

“I always knew this was coming,” shrugs Jodie, 58. “I knew that when I reached 50, the roles that would be available to me would change and they would actually get better as I got older.

“I kept saying, ‘Look, I feel there’s some really great characters to play who are about 60 to 70’, and then I realised, ‘Oh. I can still be 50-something and play people who are that age.Why do I have to wait?’ I think character parts are more fun anyway.”

Starring opposite Benedict Cumberbatc­h, whose brow

Jodie gets to mop in the film, her character defends Mohamedou Ould Salahi, who was imprisoned for 14 years without charge at the infamous Guantanamo Bay detainment camp.

Tahar Rahim plays Mohamedou, and

Benedict stars as Lieutenant Stuart Crouch, the American soldier who found himself torn between patriotism and his conscience.

“I’d never worked with Ben before, although of course I was a big fan, as are my children,” Jodie says.

“I was amazed by his transforma­tion in this movie, because in real life, he’s this curly-haired, fasttalkin­g, happy-golucky British man, and yet he was able to turn himself completely into an American military guy from the South, with no nonsense, the voice, the sense of command, everything. I never had to correct his accent at all.

“The worst part of it for him was that we shot in the summer, he was wearing a wig, and there was one long take we did together when he also had the flu, so the poor guy was doing a lot of sweating, and halfway through the take, I had to take a napkin and dab his brow!”

With two Oscars, three Bafta awards and two Golden Globes in her cabinet, and a string of blockbuste­r movie hits to her name – Taxi Driver, Bugsy Malone, The Accused and The Silence Of The Lambs to name but a few – it is astonishin­g, therefore, to hear Jodie say that had she not fallen into acting as a child, she would have taken a totally different career path.

“I never had an actress-type personalit­y,” says the famously intellectu­al star, who dipped out of the profession in her teens to study literature at Yale.

“I’ve always known that. I’m kind of introverte­d and internal. I like to read, and I enjoy analysing things intellectu­ally and making decisions.

“It’s always been a challenge for me to turn off my brain in order to be just emotional or just physical.

“That being said, I think it’s been really good for me as a person that I found my way into acting as a child because it opened me up. But I don’t think I would have gone to college and then, when I left it in my 20s, said, ‘I want to be an actor’.” When

Jodie graduated from Yale, back in 1985, she was already a cinema industry veteran of many years’ standing.

SHE made her debut in the American television sitcom Mayberry R.F.D. when she was just five. But, strictly speaking, her career started when she was three and appeared in a TV ad instead of her older brother Buddy. Their mother took Buddy to the audition only for the casting agents to pick his sister, not him.

A child of Los Angeles, Jodie has always been a fan of films. “I loved going into movie theatres when I was growing up – and that’s all we did in our family. We were a movie theatre family and if we liked a film we’d go to the theatre to see it three or four or five different times because we didn’t have video cassettes back then,” she says.

“The first movie I remember seeing was at a drive-in and I was on top of the station wagon in a sleeping bag with one of my brothers and sisters. I think it was a Beatles movie, although I don’t remember it.

“The first one I do remember seeing was Doctor Zhivago. I remember falling asleep and waking up and the screen was all white, snow and tundra, and then I’d go back to

sleep and then I’d wake up again and there was more frozen tundra.”

The magic of the movies has stayed with her to this day – but when her two sons, Charlie, now 23, and Kit, now 20, were small, she deliberate­ly took another step back from her career to spend time with them. “After having children at 35, there was no way I was not going to be there for them,” says Jodie. “There was no way I was going to miss their graduation from kindergart­en or taking them to buy new shoes, or the day when my son was talking about God in the back seat of the car. I just didn’t want not to be there for any of that.

“It’s important to me to be present for the people in my life, which is a need that has really grown in me as I get older.”

In fact, she adds, the older she gets, the more she realises that there is more to life than just making movies.

“There’s a lot of things that I do that I don’t really talk about. Daniel Day-Lewis makes shoes, and I… well, I don’t make shoes but I do other things. I love movies, but I do have a wider life than making films!”

One of the “other things” she loves to do is travel – and since a portion of The Mauritania­n was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, it provided her, along with her wife of seven years, actress and photograph­er Alexandra Hedison, the perfect opportunit­y to mix business and pleasure.

“My wife actually has family there, so I was already very lucky that I had been there before. And this time I was able to do a ton of wonderful things, like hiking and going to vineyards and having beautiful Italian food made at home by relatives.

“I stayed in the harbour area where all the ferries are so I was able to watch all the boats coming in, and I also stayed for four days right on a lovely beach, which was an incredible place that I don’t even want to tell you about because it was so fabulous!

“I love the diversity of the place, I love the people, and really feel it’s one of the few places in the world where I can say I could just toss everything and go live there.” Back home in Los Angeles, she’s looking forward to the Golden Globes ceremony tomorrow, although as it won’t be conducted in person, she will miss the chance to hang out with her fellow nominee Sir Anthony Hopkins.

This year he is up for the Best Actor Award for the family drama The Father, and, of course, was her co-star in the iconic thriller The Silence Of The Lambs.

“I’m very proud of it,” she says of the film which was released 30 years ago this year. “I knew when we were making it that it was good but I didn’t allow myself to think that my love for it would translate into its being as successful as it has been.

“Tony and I weren’t close during the shooting because we spent most of our time separated, but we run into each other sometimes now and I’m always happy to see him because I feel like we shared this extraordin­ary moment when we were at our best – although I hope that’s not the last time I’ll be at my best!”

Somehow, considerin­g this is Jodie Foster talking, that’s highly unlikely.

‘I am very proud of The Silence Of The Lambs. Tony and I weren’t close but we shared a moment’

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 ??  ?? STAR TURNS: Jodie with Silence Of The Lambs co-star Anthony Hopkins, top, with Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, middle, and Bugsy Malone, above
STAR TURNS: Jodie with Silence Of The Lambs co-star Anthony Hopkins, top, with Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, middle, and Bugsy Malone, above
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 ?? Pictures: GRAHAM BARTHOLOME­W & GETTY ?? FAMILY TIME: Jodie with her sons Kit, left, and Charlie
Pictures: GRAHAM BARTHOLOME­W & GETTY FAMILY TIME: Jodie with her sons Kit, left, and Charlie
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 ??  ?? GREY DAY: Jodie pictured with Nancy Hollander, left, who she plays in the film The Mauritania­n co-starring Benedict Cumberbatc­h, above
GREY DAY: Jodie pictured with Nancy Hollander, left, who she plays in the film The Mauritania­n co-starring Benedict Cumberbatc­h, above

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