Jodie Foster has said that she managed to escape sexual misconduct in Hollywood because she accumulated power at a young age.
The Silence of the Lambs actress said her 1977 Oscar nomination for Taxi Driver, in which she played a teenage sex worker, likely “saved” her from predators in the industry.
Speaking to NPR’s Fresh Air, Foster said: I’ve really had to examine that, like, how did I get saved? There were microaggressions, of course. Anybody who’s in the workplace has had misogynist microaggressions. 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 … 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’ve ruined people’s careers or I could’ve called ‘Uncle,’ so I wasn’t on the block.”
Foster, who has been reflecting on her career after receiving a Marrakech Film Festival honor late last year, added that her “head-first” personality may have also been a factor in warding off unacceptable behavior.
She continued: “It’s very difficult to emotionally manipulate me because I don’t operate with 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 a person has no power.”
After the Taxi Driver nomination, Foster went on to win two Oscars: first in 1989 for The Accused and then in 1992 for The Silence of the Lambs.
“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,” she told NPR.