US actor and director Jodie Foster poses during a photo session in Paris on February 13, 2024. (Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP) (Photo by JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images) US actor and director Jodie Foster poses during a photo session in Paris on February 13, 2024. (Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP) (Photo by JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images) JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images
“I don’t want to make long, esoteric, boring movies that only some film person wants to see.”
We’re in the middle of a Jodie Foster renaissance. The two-time Oscar winner is not only starring in one of the hottest limited series on TV right now, HBO’s True Detective: Night Country, but also picked up yet another Oscar nomination for her performance in Netflix’s Nyad. For True Detective, Foster responded to the balance between drama and horror, which she says is partly due to the landscape of where it’s set: Alaska. “That primitive connection with nature and 80 percent of the population is Inuit. You can’t not have the spiritual world. That’s so much a part of their life.” All of those factors make Alaska “fantastic [for storytelling].” And part of the reason why Foster was so excited for True Detective is because mainstream film distributors have “abandoned storytelling” for “franchise films or Marvel movies.” But now, because of this shift, that complex storytelling is available on streaming. “We have these wonderful limited series and long, episodic things, and now people are finally discovering that they can see their films that way too.”
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Editor’s Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.
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You’re really having a moment right now. How do you feel about this renewed interest in your work?
Well, I guess I think it’s just because I did two [projects] back to back. But it kind of scares me. The chances are, I probably won’t work again for another four years. Or maybe I’ll go behind the camera again. I like to respond to a piece of material. I love it. I’m obsessed with it. And then I have to look for my next obsession. I may not find that for another four or five years.
Jodie Foster in HBO’s ‘True Detective.’ Jodie Foster in HBO’s ‘True Detective.’ Photograph by Michele K. Short/HBO
But that’s one thing I love about you, you wait for the right thing to come. And with True Detective now, this is the first on-camera acting you’ve done since 1984. So, how’s your return to TV going?
As they say, it’s a new world, and it’s really the golden moment of streaming. I feel very lucky to explore things for six hours or eight hours. That’s just a gift to be able to play with a character like this for that long period of time. Look, I love movies that are an hour and a half long because that short story form—it has a beginning, a middle and an end—there’s something really perfect about that. But it’s a different kind of storytelling.
What do you think it is about this season of True Detective that people are responding to?
I think it’s probably the same thing that I responded to in terms of the script. It’s a genre show in some ways, right? Because it does live in the sort of horror, spiritual science-fiction genre, thriller genre, darkness. But then it’s really entertaining. It sort of has both things, this depth of character, this darkness, this complexity, but then [it’s] also really entertaining. And I really kind of insist on that in the films that I do. I don’t want to make long, esoteric, boring movies that only some film person wants to see. And I also don’t want to make junk. I want to make that sweet spot between the two where you make something that has so much resonance and that keeps people thinking and feeling for a long period of time, but also enjoy going to and talking about.
Kali Reis (left) and Jodie Foster (right) in HBO’s ‘True Detective.’ Kali Reis (left) and Jodie Foster (right) in HBO’s ‘True Detective.’ Photograph by Michele K. Short/HBO
I think that balance is so important, between high art and entertainment.
Yeah. And people talk a little bit about why is that not happening in the feature realm right now. The only mainstream distributors are making amusement park rides, big giant epic things where you sit in the movie theater and for $50, which is a lot, you kind of get this intravenous thrill experience. And that’s great. But that’s not the only thing and unfortunately, the mainstream distributors have abandoned a narrative. They’ve abandoned storytelling. And so now we have that on streaming and we [have] these wonderful limited series and these wonderful, long, episodic things, and now people are finally discovering that they can see their films that way, too.
This character in True Detective, she’s unlike anything you’ve ever done before.
She’s awful. She is unconscious, and she’s sh****, and she’s racist without even realizing that. She thinks her jokes are funny, and they’re not. But I think that what people respond to is that there’s a real truth in her and that whatever this bad attitude she has, this corruption, that it comes from a veil of a mask, she’s covering over such a tragedy. And that was my job, to kind of maintain that so by the time you get to episode five or certainly six, that you finally do understand why she has these coverings. You don’t hate her so much.
There’s a pivotal moment in episode five where your character, who never seems to cry, is holding in a tear and I’m watching it, dying for it drop, but it never does. How do you do that?
You know, I don’t know how actors do anything. I’m always in awe of them. I’m just like, oh, wow, I could never do that. Isn’t that amazing? Because you’re just watching people living. I suppose that’s my ambition, to just be and live and to have audiences witness that. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I mean, I have plans. I’m gonna walk here, and I’m gonna turn around there. But I don’t have plans about the feelings that I’m gonna express. It’s really just what happens in the moment. That’s the funny thing about acting. It’s a skill, and I don’t have a skill, but apparently I do. Because not everybody can do it. Don’t ask me why. I think the only thing that it’s about is just connecting.
Finn Bennet (left) and Jodie Foster (right) in HBO’s ‘True Detective.’ Finn Bennet (left) and Jodie Foster (right) in HBO’s ‘True Detective.’ Photograph by Michele K. Short/HBO
It’s also a very different genre for you. It’s sort of gritty crime drama meets The X-Files. Did that excite you?
It really did. Ever since The Silence of the Lambs, I really appreciate that Jonathan Demme was able to make a real horror genre movie that really touched people in a very deep and complicated way. I mean, you really care for Clarice and you care for Hannibal Lecter. There’s a real respect or weird kind of connection there, an intimacy that you have with Hannibal Lecter. And I think Issa [López] really understood how powerful that is. As she says, True Detective, season one is the love child of both Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs, you know, they all learn from each other. And I hope that season four is able to do that, be the next installment of that. We do go in a direction that’s slightly more horror related maybe, or sci-fi related, than the first True Detective, but that’s what’s beautiful about an anthology is that it takes it in different directions.
And if you’re gonna have that sense of place, right? Alaska. It’s dark, it’s night, it’s freezing, that primitive connection with nature and you recognize that that place is millions of years old and 80 percent of the population is Inuit, of Iñupiaq origin or whatever tribal origin. You can’t not have the spiritual world like that. That’s so much a part of their life, especially how the dead are walking among them and inform them. The generations of pain that native people in these remote areas have experienced and the burden of colonialism. The fact that that’s the horror is fantastic, you can’t ignore that if you’re gonna go to Alaska. I suppose if you’re gonna go to like, a mall in St. Louis, you could, but if you’re gonna go to Alaska, you can’t ignore that side of it.
I love that you just randomly name-dropped my hometown.
Really?
Yes, I’m from St. Louis, Missouri.
Maybe there’s some kind psychic connection.
I watched a lot of your movies in St. Louis, so maybe there is some kind of connection. But I do need to ask, you’re such a talented director, when you’re looking at a project, how do you decide what hat to put on, that director’s hat or actor’s hat?
Well, there are some extraordinary movies that I’m completely jealous that I didn’t direct or they’re in my genre or in my wheelhouse. But of course, if I had made them, they would be totally different. There are films that I love so much and that I respect so much, I wish that I had directed them. But it’s really easy for me because something like True Detective is not something that I would direct. It’s really, I want somebody like Issa to direct it, or Jonathan Demme, or David Fincher. So I want to serve them. And there’s something really beautiful that actors are able to do, and even directors in television are able to do, is identify a vision for a film and say, “How can I serve you?” Let me bring whatever experience I have or wisdom I have to the table. But I want to tell your story, I’m going to help you tell your story. And that’s really satisfying.
NYAD. (L-R) Annette Bening as Diana Nyad and Jodie Foster as Bonnie Stoll in NYAD. Cr. Kimberley French/Netflix ©2023 NYAD. (L-R) Annette Bening as Diana Nyad and Jodie Foster as Bonnie Stoll in NYAD. Cr. Kimberley French/Netflix ©2023 Kimberley French/Netflix ©2023
I have to congratulate you for your Oscar nomination for Nyad. How do you feel about getting this kind of acclaim right now, particularly this film?
First of all, it always feels like bingo. It’s hard to connect that up with your performance, because it just feels lucky. So I just take it as luck and it’s sort of like a “Mr. Toads Wild Ride” adventure that you’re doing at Disneyland, because with the Oscar nominations comes all this stuff, and you meet all these people, and you kind of have this adventure, you’re on this ride. And you realize that you’re a part of the community, because I forget sometimes that I’m a part of a filmmaking community. And it’s nice, it’s nice to be like, “Oh, that’s right. I do belong to the actors’ community.” But I mostly just love Bonnie [Stoll] and Diana [Nyad]. That was my first impulse for making the film. I knew them socially a little bit, and I was like, this is something people should know about that they don’t know about. In some ways, they’re kind of like my mom’s generation. They had to choose between living an authentic life and their families. And so they lived an authentic life. And they had chosen families that sometimes were ex-lovers most of the time, because those are the people that knew them and that they trusted and that they wanted to be the last person that they saw when they died. That’s a really sacred thing. And I think a lot of people didn’t really know that or they didn’t think about it, but they can relate to it.
And that’s just it, we don’t see stories like theirs told often. [Diana Nyad swam from Cuba to Florida at 64. Her friend, Bonnie Stoll, was her coach.] They’re a union, but not a couple. It’s something that is uniquely queer and so rarely ever depicted on screen.
Yeah. There’s always that expression, we’re just friends, they’re just friends. That’s a big thing to be a friend. One of my oldest friends, Marco, we knew each other from the time we were 17 in college, and we’ve been best friends ever since. And when something happens, when he got in a bicycle accident in New York City, he called me from the ambulance. The second my mom died, he’s the first person I called. We will always be each other’s first person, and that’s impossible to describe to people, that 40-plus-year friendship and the place it takes in your life.
I do have to ask you about one of your close friends, Jamie Lee Curtis. The fact that she won the Oscar last year and you’re up for one this year, and the two of you celebrating each other so often. What do you make of her long overdue success this past year?
Well, you’ve got The Bear too, because that episode she did is just beyond. I’ve never seen a performance like that on TV. When I saw it, I just couldn’t believe how amazing she was. So we have that to look forward to as well.
Oh wow, that’s right, you both could be up for Emmys together! Wow!
You know, I have almost no friends that are actors, literally not a single friend. Maybe one or two, really very, very few. I don’t know if I have the right personality or something. Or I just never stayed friends with actors. But I stayed friends with a lot of technicians, but not actors. But Jamie’s the one. And it’s mostly because, there’s six of us that are friends, we’re besties, and our children are all grown up, so we have this friendship that’s like you have when you’re 20. When you’re like, we could go to Mexico City, let’s go to Mexico City! Or let’s have dinner at 2:30 in the afternoon. We do these things because we can, all six of us. So it’s a very special group.
A film you directed, Home for the Holidays, is one of my favorite films. But because of the state of Hollywood right now, which you touched on a little earlier, it feels like a film like that—smaller, more intimate—would never be made today. Do you think we’ll ever get back to those films?
We’re at a weird moment, I think at a transitional moment. But these two parts of the industry have kind of separated the industry into big giant, mainstream Hollywood distributed movies that are franchise films or Marvel movies, etc. And then everything else is happening on streaming. It’s totally separated. But there will come a time. First of all ,the moviegoing habits have changed. The pandemic accelerated things. People just aren’t going to movie theaters the same way, they don’t treat it the same way as they used to. And now, when they’re looking for story, they’re looking for story on their own screens. And I think what you’ll find is eventually that will also be where our short story form [will be]. So beginning, a middle and an end, an hour and 45 minute movies. That’s where you’ll watch your movies.