Disclaimer: This article briefly mentions rape.
Anne Bancroft’s portrayal of Mrs. Robinson in “The Graduate” is one of the most memorable performances in American cinema. Significantly older than her opportunistic lover (Dustin Hoffman), Mrs. Robinson has become synonymous with “cougar”; she’s forlorn, and souring with age. However, Bancroft herself was a mere 36 years old at the time of filming — seven years older than her co-star, Hoffman.
The failure to cast older women has been a persistent flaw within the film industry. However, middle to post-middle aged women have been the focus of several recent popular series and films. Established talents like Jennifer Coolidge and Jean Smart have reentered the mainstream with “The White Lotus” and “Hacks,” respectively. The sensational drama “Feud: Capote Vs The Swans” stars actresses Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, and Demi Moore, all aged 50-plus. Following the release of “True Detective: Night Country,” a Hollywood luminary has again caught the public’s eye: the apple of mine, Jodie Foster.
Foster, aged 61, has been acting since the age of three. According to legend, she first caught casters’ attention after disrupting her older brother’s audition. Accidentally snagging the part, Foster made her bowl-cutted debut in a 1965 Coppertone sunscreen commercial. She’s tolerated the limelight ever since.
In the beginning, she earned minor television roles on “The Partridge Family” and “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” as the blonde ruffian who torments Eddie. She starred in several Walt Disney productions as well — you might recognize her in the original “Freaky Friday” (1976). However, Foster’s establishing role entirely abandoned the G-rated fluff she’d previously tackled. At the age of 12, Foster portrayed a child prostitute in Martin Scorsese’s harrowing drama “Taxi Driver” (1976). Featuring Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel — then relative unknowns — the film has since entered the cinematic canon, and earned Foster an Academy Award nomination.
Despite this acclaimed performance, Foster wasn’t ignorant. Few child actors have crossed the threshold of adulthood with their career intact — let alone their health. Her mother and manager, Brandy — who passed in 2019 — encouraged Foster to consider alternatives in the likelihood that acting wouldn’t sustain her.
Having been a public figure her entire childhood, Foster resented her lack of privacy. After being accepted to Yale University, she found a natural retreat from fame in academics. However, her hopes of anonymity were promptly shattered by the shocking events of March 30, 1981.
As President Ronald Reagan exited a hotel in Washington D.C., six shots were fired in an attempt on his life. President Reagan, along with White House Press Secretary Jim Brady and two others, sustained injuries. The shooter, later acquitted by reason of mental illness, had developed an unhealthy fixation on Foster. Inspired by “Taxi Driver,” he’d become convinced this act would earn her respect. The public developed a fixation of its own, as paparazzi and exploitative tabloids harassed Foster — then a freshman in college. To this day, Foster rarely addresses the incident publicly.
Refusing to be defined by near-tragedy, Foster continued acting. As a former child actress with no formal training, the odds weren’t favorable. Fortunately, Foster has a knack for overcoming the odds. Or rather, has a knack for “beating people over the head,” as she told Vanity Fair in 2019. While she’s starred in plenty of unmentionables — cough, “Contact” (1997), cough — Foster has consistently taken on challenging, often emotionally exhausting roles, and conveys their complexities with essentially self-taught skill. She fought for the role of Sarah Tobias, a rape victim, in “The Accused” (1988). The performance, based on true events, earned Foster her first Academy Award. She fought to direct “Little Man Tate” (1991) as well, marking her directorial debut.
Astonishingly, her most recognizable role nearly went to Michelle Pfeiffer. Hardly second in line, Foster fought for the role of Clarice Starling in “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991). Franklin Advanced Acting student, Lennon Vidricksen, says they admired how “cool and collected” Foster portrayed Starling. Alongside her pragmatism, viewers will recall her evident fear — making for a refreshingly three-dimensional female protagonist. “The Silence of the Lambs,” based on the Thomas Harris novel, ultimately swept the Academy Awards. In fact, alongside “It Happened One Night” (1934) and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), it’s one of three films to have swept the top five categories. Foster, of course, claimed her second Academy Award — and Pfeiffer is probably bitter.
With fame comes scrutiny, and the details of Foster’s private life have long been held beneath a magnifying glass. Charlie Rose dubbed her a “reluctant star” in 1999, commenting on her well-known distaste for press coverage. Having lived before cameras her entire childhood, Foster understandably safeguards what little privacy she has. Including, until fairly recently, her sexuality.
It isn’t complicated — Foster is gay. She married Alexandra Hedison in 2014, and together they’ve raised two sons. And yet, it is complicated. Foster is simultaneously a private figure with a private life, and a public figure with a very public life. Viewers have grown up with her, and have considered her a heterosexual for decades. Afterall, she played heterosexual roles, and Johnny Carson asked if she had a boyfriend on “The Tonight Show” in 1978 — “How could it be!” the American public cried.
When rumors surrounding her sexuality emerged, Foster was pressured heavily to come out publicly — by the press, and by those hoping her visibility would encourage tolerance. Franklin SAGA/QSA organizer and Foster devotee, Marla Baber, Ph.D., stresses that “not everybody’s out, and feels comfortable about [being out].” She mentions that Foster achieved success during a time when AIDS and conservative ideology dominated the American conscience. Baber, who is nearly Foster’s age, recalls that “People didn’t come out [when I was in] high school, because it was hard to.” Being openly queer, regardless of your public influence, presented immense risk. Baber predicts that, had Foster given in to the pressure at that time, “she’d have been shunned [by the film industry].”
Her Cecil B. DeMille Award acceptance speech in 2013, widely considered her coming out speech, had this to say: “If you’d been a public figure from the time you were a toddler, if you’d had to fight for a life that felt real, and honest, and normal against all odds, then you too might value privacy above all else … [I’m here]. I still am, and I want to be seen and understood deeply.” Foster now openly discusses her marriage to Hedison, a freedom decades in the making.
Embarrassed by praise, adequate at “Guitar Hero,” and wholly brilliant, Foster shouldn’t be defined by any single film, event, or detail. Despite her complicated relationship with fame — she considers quitting acting about once a week, according to her interview for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series — Foster has scarcely gone a year without appearing before the camera. Just last year, she snagged another Academy Award nomination for her performance as Bonnie Stolls in “Nyad” (2023). The film dramatizes Diana Nyad’s (Annette Bening) seemingly impossible swim from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida.
These days, Foster spends considerable time behind the camera as well, having directed an episode of “Orange is the New Black” and “Black Mirror,” as well as the film “Money Monster” (2016) starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts. She recently executive produced the documentary short “Alok” (2024), as well as the most recent season of the anthology crime series “True Detective: Night Country,” in which she also stars.
Not since the early 70s has Foster appeared in a recurring role for television. In the fourth season of “True Detective,” she returns to the small screen as Chief Liz Danvers — a hardened detective assigned to the brooding town of Ennis, Alaska. Following the disappearance of several Arctic researchers, Danvers and her former partner, Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) are tasked with solving the case. However, with corporate corruption, connections to an Indigenous hate crime, and a discovery that’ll add “corpsicle” to your vocabulary, the detectives struggle to ask the right questions.
Directed by Issa López, “True Detective: Night Country” bravely abandons the formula of seasons one and two — i.e. Matthew McConaughey handsomely contemplating — and pulls focus on female leads, as well as ongoing social justice issues. With lighthearted dialogue like “my spirit animal eats old f*cking white ladies like you for breakfast,” Danvers and Navarro are a uniquely dysfunctional duo. While the series is loaded with detective clichés — the sardonic veteran versus the idealistic, reckless rookie is certainly represented — the leads’ complex familial and social perspectives present a refreshing spin on tired dynamics.
Danver’s strained relationship with her adoptive daughter, Leah (Isabella Star LaBlanc) is perhaps the series’ most poignant. Leah, an Alaska Native, struggles to explore her identity beneath her mother’s fierce disapproval. Emboldened by the civil unrest happening within Ennis, she’s determined to rally alongside the Inuit Indigenous community. Meanwhile, Danvers is determined to prevent this. When Leah returns from a protest with a temporary, traditional chin tattoo, her mother demands that she remove the markings. As Leah scrubs the lines, Danvers appears ashamed — yet stubborn in her convictions. While many series and films have depicted the mother/stepdaughter dynamic, few have explored one so complicated by simultaneous familial and historical trauma.
Chief Danvers is cold, manipulative, and often entirely repugnant. Yet, rather than her actions being the result of plain callousness, they appear motivated by an inherent fear — a nuance conveyed by Foster skillfully. While Danvers is no Clarice Starling in terms of likability, the role nevertheless conveys Foster’s persistent brilliance as a storyteller. Approaching her role in “True Detective: Night Country,” Foster recognized that Danvers serves to support, rather than overshadow, Navarro’s storyline. The season’s inclusion of modern Indigenous experiences is rare, and something Foster is proud to be a part of. “It’s satisfying to recognize that it’s not your time,” she explained in a CNN interview.
Told that her career would end at 18, then at 40, Foster has consistently defied expectations. Entering her 60s, Foster feels liberated by her age. “50s are awkward, especially for an actress,” she told W Magazine. “You keep trying to compete with your past, and who you used to be.” However, similar to the phenomenon that occurs in high school seniors, Foster experienced a shift once she reached 60: she stopped caring about her past worries. And that’s the ultimate freedom, isn’t it? To exist authentically, and unapologetically. Of course, that’s easy for her — we can’t all be Jodie Foster.
If you’re interested in the films or series mentioned in this article, streaming information is listed here: “Taxi Driver,” “Little Man Tate,” streaming on Tubi; “The Accused,” streaming on Hulu; “The Silence of the Lambs,” streaming on AMC+; “Money Monster,” streaming on Amazon Prime Video; “Nyad,” streaming on Netflix; “True Detective: Night Country,” streaming on Max.
