WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1201 - Jodie Foster

Episode Date: February 15, 2021

Jodie Foster came out on the other side of being a child actor as a two-time Oscar winner, a celebrated director, a producer and someone who is content with her life. She tells Marc how she did it, which has a lot to do with her mother and establishing boundaries. They also talk about how Taxi Driver changed her conception of acting, the great lesson she learned playing Nell, why she loves David Fincher, and why she maintains strong relationships with a lot of her co-workers. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need. That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your policy renews this year. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, covering only what you need, and policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance, mind your business.

Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global bestselling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply.

Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fucksters what the fuck heads few of you how's it going i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it i don't know how long you've been around but if you're new here uh welcome just hang out we've been doing this for over a decade jesus long time and i talk to people i talk to i i have them i used to have them come over to the house, and I talked to them. And now we've figured out a way to do it like everybody else on the computer. You can do it on, like my mother would. Did you do it on the computer?

Are you on the computer today? Did I see you on the computer? Yes. Yeah, we've figured it out. And I tell you, man, once I got the hang of talking to people on the Zoom, it's turned out to be really good. We've really yielded some interesting and deeper talks than I think some of the ones that have happened in person, to be quite honest with you. It got to the point where I was talking to somebody. This is weird, but I was talking to somebody the other day on a Zoom interview, and I was having a memory of talking to somebody years ago, but my brain framed it as if it were a Zoom. Like, I remembered talking to the person, but on Zoom. So the context has invaded the actual structure of my mind.

Like my memories are now Zoom memories. Like I've got Zoom. I've got a screen in my head that I'm looking at things through. It's a little fucked up. It's a little scary. I'm worried about my mind. Jodie Foster is on the show today. I mean, you know, Jodie Foster.

I mean, Taxi Driver. the show today i mean you know jody foster yeah i mean taxi driver we talk a lot about uh a lot about some of the movies the ones i remember taxi driver bugsy malone the accused little man tate her new movie the mauritanian um but also jody foster is one of those people when you're my age i am 57 years old that you feel like you've grown up with her and known her your whole life. But I also want to point out that because I was trying to be sensitive about it and not dredge up stuff that she had nothing to do with and got dragged into through no actions of her own, some of you might not know what I meant i meant when i brought up uh all the other crap

you'll you'll be hearing it when i'm talking to her and what i'm referring to uh when i said all the other crap that she had to deal with around the time she was in college when we were talking about that for those of you who don't know in in 1981, John Hinckley tried to assassinate President Reagan and critically wounded Press Secretary James Brady. And he said he did it to impress, to try and impress Jodie Foster. Specifically, Jodie Foster from Taxi Driver and Jodie Foster, who was then in college, had to deal with the attention of that sordid type of explosion of attention. So that's what I was referring to. It's weird. Just telling you about this makes me remember years ago um a james brady story it's yeah press secretary james brady who was critically injured but he lived and he had brain damage and

he was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life i believe and the memory i have of him was many years ago one of the first times i ever did stand up comedy at a comedy club was with uh steve brill who is a film director and an old friend of mine from college we put together a team act to audition for a show called hbo live on campus it was produced by catch rising star and HBO. We auditioned for it. We did not get the show, but we were told, because we tanked on a live audition. We'd never been in a comedy club before.

And the first time I was at a comedy club was at the Comedy Connection with Steve, and we just ate it. But they did promise us that we could do a spot at Catch a Rising Star in New York City. So we, at some point, went down there. We waited around. We were told we'd have a spot at Catch a Rising Star in New York City. So we, at some point, went down there. We waited around.

We were told we'd have a spot. We went on when there was literally no one there, almost no one there, maybe 10, 12 people, and one of those people was James Brady. I don't know if he enjoyed the show. It sort of made us feel a little weird, but that's that story not that exciting nowhere to go with it just performed for him once and he was almost the only person in the room so i don't know what you're up to lately folks but i just

what have i been doing i watched um i've been watching these Harold Pinter screenplays on the Criterion channel. I watched a filmed version of his play, The Homecoming, which I found mind-blowing. And I watched The Accident, and I watched The Pumpkin Eater, I think it's called, and Bancroft. All very disturbing, beautifully written. I've been doing a lot of thinking about the writing and doing a lot of thinking about the thinking. And then somebody told me that Adam Curtis has a new documentary series on the BBC called Can't Get You Out of My Head. Now, I don't know if you know Adam Curtis, but I guess it's high time or maybe the timing is perfect for me to take in another Adam Curtis film, because after I watched Hypernormalization and The Century of Self, it took me, I think, years to kind of process what was put in my head by Adam Curtis. out of his way in the first episode of this series to kind of put some things into perspective that need putting into perspective like understanding how and why conspiracy theories kind of fit into

the modern brain it's a big net he's throwing with a lot of strands tying together but his tracking of the illuminati conspiracy back to the discordians who are almost a a couple of of hippie pranksters looking to uh to fight against the dominant paradigm and against organized religion and created this religion and then they did some um kind of pranks uh in the letter column of playboy which introduced the idea that the illuminate was was running the world. It was a joke. It was a fucking joke. And look where we are. Now we have the punchline of that joke, at least 80% of them trying to take over the US Capitol and stop the elections. The punchlines of a joke, the joke of religion, the joke of the conspiracy the joke of zionist occupied government

the joke of connecting the dots in the frightened minds of those who want some sense of closure and order and power who want to simplify it to want to find places and things to blame and justification for their hatred and fear it started as a fucking hippie prank now look at you jesus christ but that is not what the documentary series is about it's really about the construction of our minds and our sense of selves and how they relate to the dominant power structure and what power has to do culturally politically economically with how we see ourselves literally with how we see ourselves from our fucking brains and i'm only two episodes in and we're already dealing with we're dealing with the the evolution of the government of you

know this country of china of russia of film of literature in terms of trying to understand the mind you know the idea of binary logic and how that was initially used or meant to be an exploration of how the human brain works but years later was used as the foundation of how artificial dude dudettes people he she them your got to watch it look man i don't know i'm sure there's a lot of pushback around it but the guy's an artist man he's a fucking artist and this is an unpaid plug fucking adam curtis always blows my mind and it gets my brain going in ways and it fills in some blanks that need to be filled in. And there's plenty of time to do the thinking, plenty of time to do the thinking. I think I'm getting a kitten in a few weeks. Just going to put that out there. So Jodie Foster. Now, I'll tell you the high point of my conversation with Jodie Foster, and it's sort of odd because, you know, it just stuck with me.

And I'm sure you'll notice it. I don't even know if I have to bring it to your attention. But when she recollects an egg salad sandwich in the canteen of Disney Studios, the cafeteria at Disney, it was so great to watch her do it. She went there, man. She went back to that sandwich. This is me talking to Jodie Foster. Her new film, The Mauritanian, is in theaters now and will be available on digital platforms in the near future. It's a true story about the detention of a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay for 14 years without a charge. It's directed by Kevin MacDonald,

who some of you might know about from this show and a mistake involving him several years ago. But all that aside, this is me talking to Jody Falk. Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need. That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your policy renews this year. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, covering only what you need, and policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote.

Zensurance, mind your business. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun.

A new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Foster. I see Jodie Foster on the screen and I hear her Hi Jodi Foster Hi there How are you?

Pretty good, pretty good You know, it's a beautiful day I'm looking out and I see palm trees and blue sky I suppose we need to be grateful I do that every day I see palm trees from my porch too And I think like it can't be that bad it's winter it's 70 degrees the sky is clear that is true and then you look at your

phone and you go oh fuck we're in trouble yeah i guess the moral of the story is maybe don't look at your phone so much right right try to limit that. Try to limit, like, do you ever just, like, wake up and in bed do it to yourself with the phone? Are you? Every morning. It's the worst. Every morning. Yeah, it's a terrible thing. I don't know. I feel like if I don't, if I'm not watching, that the world will implode. Oh, you're going to stop it? Yeah, I'm the magic, you know, the magic unicorn that only I, if i'm not watching terrible things will happen thank god we made it another day because jodie foster looked at her phone when she woke up that's right uh-oh whoops what happened oh you froze up a little so um i've got yeah i got i

have to my phone just went on i have to do that thing where you go like you hover over notifications. Will you do? There's some like thing you're supposed to do. Shit. I don't know how to do it. Oh, well, can you tell that I'm over 50? I can't figure out where the mute button is and don't know how to turn the alerts off on my. Yeah, I'm the same. Yeah. But, you know, there's some people that are older than us that still have AOL addresses. I mean, I'm assuming that you've moved past the AOL address. That's always a surefire indicator when you see the AOL address. Yeah, I have learned a little bit in the last few years. But I have like it's the only place where road rage comes out on me is I have a computer rage.

Oh, yeah. on me is I have a computer rage. Oh yeah. Where if something happens or I lose something or something freezes, suddenly I start, you know, screaming and stomping my feet and acting like a five-year-old. Right. Because we don't have, we don't know what the recourse is. If you're in a car, you pull over the brakes, whatever, you know how to drive a car, but that powerlessness, that feeling of like, I have no idea. And you know that people, there are people that know how to do it, but it's not you. No, my children know how, but they're teaching me. So that's okay. I mean, look, the movie business changed a lot.

And in some ways for the better and in some ways for the worse. I mean, now, for example, you used to have to, if you were going to scout for a location, you would send a scout out and that person would travel across the country. And then they would take a bunch of shots on their camera. They would do them in kind of like an arc so that they were able to get a perspective. They take 10 shots. Then they go to the one hour photo. They'd sit there and wait for an hour. When they got the photos, they would tape them up with scotch tape, put them all together. And then they'd put them in a, in an envelope and send them to you and you would get them three days later. And then you'd look at them and go, I don't know what happens over there.

Yeah. And then suddenly they have to go back to the place. Nowadays, all you do is, you know, push a button on your phone. Yeah. The guys there, they're, they're there already and you can look in real time. That's right. So it tightens things up. So now is everybody at home because of the lockdown? Have you been spending an inordinate amount of time with the family? Yes. And it's all good. Both my boys are leaving.

They're going back to college. The little one wasn't able to go to college for his freshman year. So this is, he's been doing it all from Zoom from home. So that was really sad. My older has been in college. So that's been better. Your older one, he's able to go? Yeah. Older one's been doing it all from Zoom from home. So that was really sad. My older husband in college, so that's been better. Your older one, he's able to go? Yeah. Older one's been there. He said it's the best year he's ever had. So go figure. Really? And nobody's gotten sick? Everybody's good?

No, I think his school really figured it out. They have their own testing sites and they're on top of it. Oh, that's great. So they had very little impact i think people really follow the rules and as far as my son's concerned you know doing school in bed sounds like the best thing he's ever heard of what is he what are they studying um my older one is really into theater um wow he definitely wants to be an actor. He does a lot of writing and stand up. Um, he does stand up. Yeah. Oh, wow. Do I know him? Have I seen him? Is he, no, I don't think you have. Uh, you'll, you'll know him because he talks about his mom a lot. I mean, I think that kind of tells you, uh, when you don't have a lot of experience, you find that your standup has a lot to do with your mom. But does he say my mother, Jodie Foster? No, no, no, he doesn't do Foster no no no he doesn't do that thank god he

doesn't do that do you take a hit yeah are you okay with what he's saying yeah I don't mind I mean you know I I'm one of those people that like I dress up for Super Bowl sure so I don't have a problem people making fun of me you dress for Super Bowl? I draw the line at playoffs, however. Okay. Okay, good. It's funny because I was like thinking about you and thinking about my life and how like you've been there my entire life.

We're about the same age. And it's weird because I was realizing yesterday when I was thinking about it, like how that Bugsy Malone was a very important movie to me. Really? It was? Oh, that's so nice to hear. But it was sort of a big deal, you know, because it was kids in a grown-up movie and the guns

shot pies. I mean, it was a big deal. I mean, what year was that? I mean, how old was I? I don't want to know. Now I'm going to find out. I was 12 when I did it. So I was like 11 or 12 too.

And it was just sort of like, it was like a really fun like like we were excited to go i remember it was like a new kind of movie yeah it was actually it was a british film a lot of people don't realize that um alan parker's first movie was entirely a british uh production there were four of us maybe five of us that were brought from the United States. And everybody else were kids that were either British or they were living on American army bases in London, outside of London. So it was kind of like going to a very rough public school in Manchester or something, you know, there would be, there were the girls that were the dancers. They didn't, none of them had their parents with them. So they were, they were all living in these kind of,

they had minders and they were living in these like dormitories. And there was a whole group of girls from Liverpool and they were the dancers. Wow. And the dancers, when you go down to the corridors at Pinewood and the dancers would cut you off at the end of the corridor with fire extinguishers. And they'd say, what's the password? And you'd be like, Oh wait, that was Scottish. Anyways, what's the password? And I'd be like, I don't know. And then they would shoot you. It was terrifying.

The trauma, the trauma of the Bugsy Malone set yeah all of us with our you know bleached hair and our pencil thin eyebrows and um it was really it was a lot of fun and i think such a creative interesting film yeah it was interesting and it showed up in a black mirror episode did it it did like i did i just did a movie with um Andrea Riceboro and she was in a Black Mirror episode she was Crocodile and the kids and the kids were doing Bugsy Malone on stage you remember in the school play you're right yeah yeah you're right that that is right they go to the school play yeah absolutely and and then uh but you directed an episode in the same season of Black Mirror I did is it because you love that show

did you seek that out love that show i didn't seek it out they found me and i had actually never seen the show so um i saw the pig episode and i was like i'm in um yeah he's charlie brooker is such an amazing mind i don't know how he does it um and, you know, he writes every single one of those, every single one of those crazy things comes out of his head. And what's strange about him is that he seems to have some kind of weird prescient voodoo thing where he's able to manifest whatever is in his mind. He's able to manifest in the future of the news basically.

So he just came up with the idea about you know um bees carrying um sort of you know robot bees carrying uh viruses and stuff and then suddenly that appears right years later in um amazing so he's that guy he's the profit guy he's the guy where you watch his shows you're're like, oh, we're in trouble. It is never it never it's not it's never a bright future, I guess, with with his prophesies. this idea of doing an anthology series where each one was a little feature and he gave complete and total control to the directors, just like you would on a movie. So each director has, you know, it's a brand new cast. It's a brand new crew. It's a brand new, brand new location, brand new editor, brand new composer.

You don't have to honor a look at all there. You know, there it's up to you. No, I mean, they have some ideas about what they're looking for, obviously. And he's a wonderful producer that travels with you. But no, it's really up to the director. And I thought that was so brave of him to do that. And I think that's what makes the show as powerful as it is. Yeah, because you you layer in a real auteur vision as opposed to just hire a director to honor the vision that's already there yeah i mean i love you know i've loved every one of the episodes in that season i just thought it was extraordinary i mean look at something like crocodile and it couldn't be any more different than um you know what what i did with archangel and my film is like a little

little indie movie about a mother and a daughter. Right. And I really wanted to keep that indie, that kind of messy indie spirit. And you look at some of the other movies in there. I mean, we were just talking about Crocodile. So you look at that with that incredible landscape, that almost Icelandic landscape. It is. I think it is Icelandic. Modern architecture houses and just extraordinary. Bleak and beautiful.

And she said that her part it was written for guy pierce and she yeah and she pushed them to give her the part good for her good for her see sometimes i i've done that before uh where you shift the gender and there's sometimes it works and it's just incredibly powerful and other times times, you know, it should never happen. But you've done it as a director or as a as you took a role as an actress. Yeah, really. I did that, I think, for Flight Plan. That was originally a man and which really didn't make any sense. So with the second you change it to a woman, then suddenly there was a whole history of female hysteria, the idea of female hysteria and how that's translated into other films.

And I don't know, suddenly it became so much more rich. Right. Well, why wouldn't it? It's a completely different point of view. So I used to do a joke in my act about how people who come to Hollywood expecting to become stars are sort of misunderstanding the situation out here. I used to say that Hollywood isn't your parents. They're not here to take care. It's not here as an entity to take care of you and continue your adulthood and guide you. But oddly, it kind of was your parents, wasn't it?

but oddly it kind of was your parents, wasn't it? Well, it was definitely my brothers and sisters for sure. I feel like I was raised by, I was raised on movie sets by all of these, you know, wonderful people who taught me hard lessons and they did care about me and took care of me. Yeah. I mean, I, I know how to wood, whittle wood for some reason. Would you earn that on the Mayberry set? Some teamster. I'm not sure how that happens. Where'd you learn that? On the Mayberry set? Some teamster.

I don't know. I think it was on Tom Sawyer where I spent a lot of time whittling wood. And I know how, you know, I came to really understand the camera from every technician's point of view, which was nice to kind of get that film school from them. Yeah.

Was your mom though, your mom was in show business? No. Well, I guess she was. Yeah. She had been a publicist before I was born for a kind of fame, famous guy. Which guy?

Arthur Jacobs. The producer, right? He became a producer. Originally he was a, he was a manager and a publicist. He's sort of a character though, right?

You know, he sort of? Yeah, he was. He produced the Planet of the Apes movies. And Dr. Doolittle, didn't he? Dr. Doolittle, yeah, he did. But when he was a publicist, he handled Grace Kelly, and he handled Marilyn Monroe. Actually, I think that he was the first person who was on the scene when Marilyn Monroe died.

Really? And your mom worked for him? Yeah. I'm just reading about him in this book about those five movies. The Transitional, Dr. Doolittle, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and Bonnie and Clyde. Why are all those movies put together? Mark Harris is the guy's name.

He's Tony Kushner's husband, and he's written three books. He just wrote a book about Mike Nichols, and he wrote this book. It's sort of the same angle as Biskin's book, but his thesis is that it happened earlier. The transition started in the earlier to mid-60s with The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Bonnie and Clyde. And it wasn't the explosion of those guys that happened in the heat of the night, Bonnie and Clyde. And it wasn't, you know, the explosion of those, those guys that happened in the early seventies, but Doolittle was sort of the end of it. He that's, I think. Yeah. But Jacobs is all, he's all over this book and it's just like, I don't, you know about it. Cause you know, you, you did it, but he really gets into the, the nuts and bolts of producing a movie like Doolittle and what a disaster it just unfolded into.

And poor Arthur Jacobs was ailing. He was having heart problems. And it was like it almost killed him. Yeah, there's lots of wonderful stories about how movies are made. You know, it's really, I just have such nostalgia. I mean, it's my whole childhood. Do you remember Walt Disney? No, I've never met Walt Disney.

I think he's probably dead by the time I was pretty young, but I knew Ron Miller who ran the studio after that, his son-in-law and I knew everybody at Disney. I was a Disney kid, right? So I made like four or five films there. Was it like Kurt Russell? Was he around? Yeah, he was around.

I mean, I've met him vaguely. I don't remember because I was a kid and he was older. But yeah, Kurt Russell was around that same time period. It must have been crazy on the set at Disney. I mean, it just- It was. I tended to do, I did a lot of movies with animals. And all of my movies were on location.

So I never really worked on stage. I guess I worked on stage for one part of like Freaky Friday. I guess I worked on stage for one part of Freaky Friday. I guess I worked on stage for some of it over there. My memories of Disney is they used to invite me to all of the Disney events at the park. I would have to be in a parade

or that kind of thing. I loved it. I loved it. I got to see the opening of the Abraham Lincoln ride that was there on Main Street. President Tall or whatever. Yeah. And I was there for Jungle something Jamboree. Oh, yeah.

The Bears. Jamboree. The Bears. Yeah. And so I got to take my family and go around. So I remember that. I also remember the commissary at Disney that had, they had, I discovered egg salad sandwiches. I'd never had an egg salad sandwich.

And I remember like. That's a big deal. Well, it was the perfect egg salad sandwich because it was super cold and they had iceberg lettuce. Nice. Those are my memories. Those are good memories. But now how does it kind of factor? When did you start to realize like, because it was pretty clear early on that you had, you know, you were kind of a whiz kid and you could take on languages and everything else.

I mean, but was that, did you ever, when you were a kid, think that show business was like you wanted to do something else early on or were you just so immersed in it that that was your life? Well, I never thought I would be an actor when I grew up and my mom was very keen on on asking me all the time like oh so are you going to be a lawyer are you going to be a doctor or you know she really she did not want me to grow comfortable with the idea that I would be an actor when I grew up because no child actors ever grew up to be adult actors yeah Yeah. It never goes well. Rarely. Yeah. Well, I don't know that it never goes well. I think most child actors, it goes well. You just never hear from them again because they become real estate people. They become healthy people who have regular lives. Yeah. So she didn't want to encourage it. And I think she, she kept telling me that by the time that I was, you know,

15 or 16, that my career would be over. And what did I want to do after that? So I never thought I would be an actor. And I kind of thought as a very young person, I thought it was a dumb job because all I understood it to be was, you know, you learn lines that someone else wrote and then you said them. And that just seemed, I just, there was no way that I was going to be happy with just that.

But so you had a knack for it. No one ever, you never went to a class or you never trained or you never, it was just, you just had a knack for it. Yeah, I guess so. And I've worked with a lot of child actors, some who, who have undergone some training and some like the little boy in Little Man Tate who have never done anything. I mean, he had never even been in a school play. He just was a kid that my casting director found in a cute public school in Manhattan. You know, that was it. It's not necessarily something you can teach, but what you get when you have very young

actors is that there's a kind of self-consciousness that they don't have when they're very young. So you can catch somebody before they're nine years old. They don't have the kind of self-consciousness you start getting at nine, 10, 11, 12 years old. So, yeah, I didn't think I would be an actor. And then I went to college. I thought, oh, well, after college, my mom said after college, you won't be an actor anymore. And then I continued. And then she said, when you turn 40, after you turn 40, that's it.

You'll never work again. And I kept waiting. Then I turned 40 and I was like, I better work a lot. And then it kept going. She kept thinking you weren't, but she had to have seen at some point that, you know, you were definitely branching out and that your business and your intellect and your creativity had become much bigger than acting. Yeah, I think she was pretty proud of that. I mean, she was proud of

directing and she was very supportive of that. She was really supportive of me going to college and which at the time I think was really anathema for an actor. Well, yeah, I mean, it reminded me of like it's and it's always sort of this weird big deal when uh actors go to like i remember when natalie portman and and claire danes like you know any actress that decides to stop and go to school it's like oh my god what's she's what are they doing you know yeah and it was such an important step for me yeah well going back though like did you like you're talking about Dr. Doolittle or talking about this shift. I mean, you were doing television, like all the old television, like black and white television, even right. A bit at the beginning. Yeah. So you knew all these,

you knew like, you know, Rod Serling and, and Andy Griffith and all these, you know, like that, uh, what's his name? Arnett from Gunsmoke. You worked with all of those guys. from Gunsmoke. You worked with all of those guys. Yeah, Gunsmoke. I did all those dramatic opuses like Nanny and the Professor. My Three Sons and all those 70s shows.

You remember Fred McMurray? Nice guy. Yeah, very nice guy. Partridge Family. You did the Partridge Family? Yeah, I was on the... I think I only did one show of the Partridge Family. I went out for the partridge family to be a regular to be one of the kids and i didn't get it so in your mind like when you think back on some of these people that you've come across in your life i mean are there people that stood out to you as a kid that you had more of an impact than others i kind of feel well taxi driver reallyi Driver really changed everything. I think until I did

Taxi Driver, and I was 12 years old when I did Taxi Driver, I think that I didn't really take it all very seriously as much as I loved movies. And I really was, my mom was a big fan of films and we saw lots of foreign films and we would see movies over and over and over again. And you can understand French. So that was good for the foreign film. Yeah. So we were really a big movie family, big movie fan family. But even though I loved movies, I just, I didn't understand that acting was more than just saying lines until I did Tax Driver. And that to me was like a, it was just like a mind altering trajectory for me.

And was it the sort of the triangle of you and De Niro and Scorsese? I think he took the time. I think De Niro really took the time with me. Scorsese kind of sent the two of us out or maybe De Niro did it on his own because he, at that time he was very immersive. Yeah. And he'd pick me up every day in New York and we'd go to a different diner and we'd just keep running the lines, which I didn't really understand why we kept running the lines over and over again. And then by the third time that we did this, he started improvising and going off on all these tangents. And at that point, I think we felt comfortable with each other enough to be able to go back into the text. And it was something about that process that I really understood that it was my fault

as an actor that I had not contributed enough. And that there was a whole rich universe of understanding in terms of character that I had just been, you know, blind to. Really? And you just sort of realized that through the repetition and then through improvising? Yeah. And then watching the scene take place watching what Scorsese did um then ultimately really seeing the movie and seeing how those things all dovetailed and how they came together it was such an inspiring experience and it probably also coincided with all those amazing movies like Lenny yeah um you know Straw Dogs right and um um

you know, straw dogs. Right. And I mean, that cowboy. You saw those when you were 12. Oh yeah. We're a big,

big, yeah. We're a big, big, big movie family. And, and we saw some really serious movies. I mean, my mom never,

she never kept me away from our rated films. And yeah, we saw some pretty serious movies. When you were on the set, like in talking, like even in that, that thing we were talking about earlier, the shift in how movies were made in the shift in hollywood did you feel that this set was different i mean we i mean you've been on you know 50 sets already

yeah it was different um you know scores every director that you work with is different so um scorsese was his his method was more unusual than I had seen before. He did, he used hundreds of thousands of feet of film and he did take after take after take after take of the same thing over and over again, same angle. And he had just, that was his deal, which is just to have an exhausted, exhaustive amount of film and to comb through it and just look for surprises, you know? Yeah. So you got an Oscar for that, right?

No, I got nominated for supporting. What did you win an Oscar for? Oh, Accused. Accused and South of the Lambs, yeah. Those are great movies. Yeah, those are some good films. I didn't mean, I hope you didn't think it was rude that I asked you those questions.

No, I don't care. I mean, well, it's important. But, um, so yeah, of course it's important. I mean, I was thinking about that. I was talking to my producer yesterday about the accused and, and I'd seen it. I saw it not too long ago. And I said to him, I said, I think that's one of the best performances of anything ever. Like it's yeah. yeah. Because I don't have any objectivity about that performance. Why is that? You know, I kind of felt, it was interesting. I felt like a little bit of a failure when I made that movie because there were things that the producers and the director wanted, were trying to encourage me to do differently. And I couldn't. Like what?

Well, like, I really, I felt like I really came to understand the character. And I had made these decisions about the character that I just couldn't abandon, even though they asked me to abandon them in order to accomplish some kind of goal they had. Like which ones? Well, I remember, for example, that the producer who I really love, I really love this guy, Stanley Jaffe. He just was a cool, cool guy, crazy guy. And definitely made a lot of people nuts, but I really liked him. He was an old timer too, right?

Been around a long time. He was an old timer, yeah. He made me, he exerted a lot of around a long time. He was an old timer. Yeah. He made me, he, he exerted a lot of power on the set and he was there every day. And he had a lot of opinions about, you know, everything from how many my mini skirt should be to how I should smoke. Right. And I was a smoker at the time and he was not happy with how I smoked.

Huh. And he made me reshoot like twice, reshoot the same scene twice because of the way I smoked. And I was just like, sorry. Yeah. How are you going to, that's the way it is. And, um, how are you going to change something like that and get hung up on it in the middle of that performance? You're going to worry about, you know? Yeah. There was a lot of, there was a lot of, I think there was a lot of intervening

at the time. Cause I think people were worried. They were worried that, oh, she's too tough or, oh, she's too unlikable or she's. And granted there was a part of me that worried about that too. I just couldn't do it any differently. I just knew her and that's how she was. So for example, the courtroom scene, I think we had a lot of problems with the courtroom scene. They had a lot of problems with it in the cut. And I think that Jonathan was hoping or expected for a different kind of performance than the one that I was able to give. So when I finished that movie, I just felt like a bad actor. I just felt like, wow, I'm a bad actor because I couldn't make this character more likable for them.

But that's such a weird kind of Hollywood note. Now that I'm thinking about Stanley Jaffe, he's one of those guys that had a reputation of being sort of a control freak, I think. Yeah, yeah. He's Sherry Lansing. Sherry Lansing's producer at Paramount as well. And yeah, he did, yeah, lots of big movies.

I really liked the guy. So I have a real fondness for him. And he just, he was kind of old school. And I think they didn't really understand what they had and they were worried. I think they were worried that the character would be offensive to people. And I guess I sort of internalized that and I was like, gosh, I wish I could make her less offensive. I'm so sorry. This is what I got. And, and in the end, I think, I, you know, I think it was instinct and I think I was right. And it really taught me that you can't accommodate other people when it's about fear.

It's also part of it. It also works for the character. I mean, like that, you know, to create that insecurity and that overcompensating and the attempting to please everybody, you know, in these moments. I mean, that that is part is part of the brokenness of that character. And I think that what they probably misunderstood was the vulnerability that you were able to access in the middle of all that, because it wasn't something in movies necessarily. Yeah. And that's okay. Like, this is part of the process. This is why we do what we do. We fight for things that we know are important, even though we don't understand why they're important and sometimes that challenge that process of challenging authority and challenging other people like that's how movies

get made so i don't i don't have a problem with that i feel like that's that's kind of what we do but it's hard for me because i'm a people-pleasing good girl right like i like to take notes and i like to get good grades and i'm not a rebel and so that movie taught me a lot but you've able to you've able to you know manage that that particular problem the people pleasing part yeah yeah no i'm yeah i think i have um you know there's there's parts of it that i've learned to let go of and then other parts of it that are just, you know, just damned, damned with. Well, it's hard. I guess the big challenge there is just making sure you have some boundaries

and you don't let yourself get trampled. Yeah. Look, sometimes you make a choice in a character and it's a bad choice. That's really possible. I've made, I've made mistakes with a character before and I can look later and go like, maybe I shouldn't have done that or whatever. But the only thing you can do is operate on instinctually what you know to be true. And you have to live by that,

whether it works for the film or whether it doesn't work for the film. Because if you don't have that, you don't have anything. But The Accused was a huge movie because it seemed like after you went off to know i i don't know a lot of those movies do you remember the yeah yeah i made five movies while i was in college and um none of them were successful none of them yeah did you did you like any of those movies yeah i loved hotel new hampshire i thought that was a great movie that was sort of it was one of those big casts

right yeah a hotel new hampshire i'm trying to think which are the other ones. That one's bad. The blood of others. Well, that was. Yeah. I mean, they're all adventures. They just weren't, the movies didn't quite work. And like, and also, but you had to deal with all that other crap too that you were dealing with

that somehow you managed to that must have been some lesson in creating personal boundaries that the john hinkley stuff yeah it was it's a that's a weird moment in my life you know but you like transcended it was kind of amazing yes i mean i skillfully transcended. It was kind of amazing. Yes. I mean, I skillfully transcended because my mom, who had been a publicist, was very clear that she tried to guide me to make sure that I wasn't just going to be known as the person who was involved in the shooting of the president. Attached to it. Attached to it. Yeah. So she said, you know, you want to have a career that's not about this. So you're going to never talk about it. And, um, you know, you'll do whatever you need to do for the court case. And then that's it. You won't talk about it. Um, what I, what I did is I wrote a piece for Esquire magazine, um, that was sort of a first person piece. And I had an attachment

to them because I'd worked there as an intern. And that was it. I had written what I had to write about it. I got it out and there was nothing more to say about it. And that was policy. Yeah. It took some enforcement. I'm not sure that you could enforce that these days because we have a different relationship with the press now. I don't know. What do you make of that? How do you characterize that different relationship? It's just a different time. You know, it's a different time. It's a different culture. You know, we didn't have long lenses like that. Zoom lenses. We didn't have the internet. We didn't have social media. You know, we we just it was just a different time to grow up in i feel sorry for um for young actors that are growing up in this time that

um are are trying to navigate uh becoming humans and being a celebrity at the same time like i don't really know how you do that right because there's also the pressure to have the role of what you decide your private life, what of it is going to be available and how you're going to handle that. Like there's no way to avoid it. Yeah. It's not entirely in your control. Um, I don't know. I mean, it was a different time then I'm, I'm feel very lucky that I was raised in that time and not this one. And when did you know that you had succeeded in distancing yourself from that? From what? From,

from the Hinkley problem. I don't know that I did. I think I, you know, we was took a lot of enforcement and yeah, I don't, I don't know that I did. I mean,

I don't know. I guess I did the best I could. Well, I, I mean, I didn't, it was weird because when I knew I was going to talk to you and after I watched the new movie, and then I was just sort of thinking about you, that I didn't realize until two days ago.

I texted my producer. I'm like, oh, yeah, that Hinkley thing. It was nowhere near the first thing I thought about. And I grew up with you. Yeah. Yeah. That was, you know, it's a testament to first thing I thought about. And I grew up with you. Yeah. Yeah. That was, you know, it's a testament to my mom. Oh, well, good. You know, I think she was able to, to find a good strategy to make sure that that happened.

And how much, how much did it affect your personal life in general, just in terms of being out in the world and doing stuff? And I guess the whole thing was kind of isolating. Yeah, it was, you know, it was a weird weird time in history it really was a weird time for me personally weird time for uh you know the movie business and yeah weird strange and you started directing pretty shortly after the accused no uh no oh oh but i guess it was short in real years. I guess it was short. So I was 20, 26 and a half, 27 when I first directed. The Accused, I was probably a year out of college, two years out of college. I was probably like 24. just had such a, an effect on me. And also I think it's, it's relevant to, you know, sort of, you know, destructive group think, you know, horrendous transgressions that are done by people who are kind of like, just glom on to evil. Well, it's a human phenomenon. You know,

they're all human beings. It's a human phenomenon. Yeah. I mean, it was an eye-opening experience for me and I was young. I was, I was only 24 and I'm not sure. I think I came onto that movie with a lot of fears and a lot of unconsciousness. You know, I wasn't an aware person at 24. So I like, I read the script once and, you know, maybe I met with one rape counselor, but that was pretty much all the research I did besides going dancing a lot in clubs. Like that was pretty much it. And, um, I think I was scared to think about it any more than that. I didn't really want to think about it. Right. So I think that performance came out

of that, out of that unconsciousness was the dancing in clubs, the scariest part of the research. Was the dancing in clubs the scariest part of the research? It was the most fun part of the research. But did you see those men around? No, not really. I mean, that's not, I think I just wanted to be in the experience of feeling free. Right. You know, because that's, you have to have that in order to have this sequence feel impactful.

What happens before that sequence is very important. Like this is a woman who is having the best night of her life, where she feels free and confident and that she doesn't have to feel threatened. She can just be herself. Yeah, it's so heartbreaking, the whole thing. But you did Silence of the Lambs before Little Man Tate came out, huh? So Silence of the Lambs, that happened pretty quickly. Well, I mean, I guess within a couple of years.

And that character, again, how did you approach that character? Well, that one, there was a lot of research to do on that one, right? So I went to, I read a lot of books. Did you go to the FBI? Yeah, I spent some time in quantico i spent a few days in quantico i slept over there and stuff and hung out with people i met with a bunch of fbi people i did a lot of research there you know on forensics and on shooting guns and you know climbing the marine things and but it's interesting that that the core of that thing is also sort of the you know, climbing the marine things. But it's interesting that the core of that thing is also sort of your vulnerability in the face of monsters.

Well, that's clearly the greatest thing about Sounds of the Lambs, and I think why it is such a great film, is that the book was just this almost magical unicorn that came out of nowhere. I think it's, it's the best thing that Thomas Harris has ever written for sure. And so inspired. And it's so inspired all of us,

actually every single one of us, whether it's Ted Talley, the writer or Howard Shore, the composer or me and Tony and Jonathan Demme or Tack Fujimoto, the DP. Like, I think it's for all of us, it's the best work that we've ever done.

And we all have this sinking feeling that we'll never reach that again. And mostly it's because the book was just this perfect thing. It gave so much detail to those characters and so much texture to it that all of us were just completely inspired, you know? Yeah. Well, I mean, it definitely, it all, it's one of those movies that it all comes together for sure on screen, every part of it. Yeah.

And that's a testament to Jonathan. You know, I was worried about Jonathan when I, when I first, when I first knew he was going to be the director, because I'd really wanted to do that movie for a while. I'd read the book and I tried to option the book as a producer and just, you know, I really wanted to do it and I wasn't able to nail it down. And then it got given to Jonathan to direct. And I thought,

Oh, married to the mob. Yeah. My God, you know, he's going to, he's going to grab onto the kitsch part and he's not going to respect Clarice.

And, and I told him that, I mean, I told him that, that I was worried about it. Wow. And he's a, cause he's kind of a silly guy, right him that that i was worried about it wow and he's because he's kind of a silly guy right he wears wine shirts and he's laughing and he's joyful

and happy and energetic and and i think that what he did was he really managed the right balance that he was able to honor the genre part of it and to not take that part too too seriously and yet to keep it as serious as a heart attack and really respect Clarice. And he got into the movie because he loved Clarice and really respected her. And if you come at the movie from that point of view, it's a very different film than it might've been had it just been like a monster movie. When you bring up the DP on that, Mike, I'm thinking about, because some of the most interesting parts of that movie were the kind of routines of the fbi right and then like all of a sudden you get into the world of the killer with the butterflies

and the chaos all within that one house sort of up against this kind of you know anything shot at the fbi just like people doing exercises that have a regiment to them and then you just enter this like bug infested chaos pit of death and it's like the juxtaposition is is powerful and i just talked to scott glenn a few weeks ago he's he's he's fucking amazing i love scott i see him all the time because we ski together oh you do lives there and you know and catch him in idaho and i i see him a lot him and his wife yeah carol yeah yeah i mean she seems amazing too with the ceramics and so cool he's such a cool guy i mean he's such a like tough tough marine he's like a marine feminist right yeah you know what i mean like his whole

life is about feminism yeah about like letting women take charge and he's just and this he's a super you know muscle bound uh guy from the marines who likes to shoot guns and yet um he gets you know he's just like the great liberal warrior so when you did little man tate was that kind of you reconciling with some of your genius kid stuff yeah i don't know that i was a genius kid i mean i think i was a prodigious kid and prodigious at something that's was just born in me. And that was really, I, you know, wasn't math. It wasn't science. It was the ability to understand psychology, adult psychology. So yeah, I felt, I felt like in a way it was like this, it was felt like an autobiography and yet it's not about my life at all. I really worked with Scott Frank on the screenplay a lot as a young

filmmaker and was able to really talk about things from my past and, you know, develop the characters of the two women. The, the, the screenplay was a bit different when I got it. And, and we really shifted it to be about this. It's almost like two women raising this child. Right. And who is this herald of a new age? You know, what does it mean to be a prodigy?

A prodigy means you stand outside of this generation and fueled by the disappointment of these two women that he came from, these two opposite sides. I mean, yeah, I love that movie. Yeah, it was a great movie. And it was like, but did you like producing? I didn't produce that one technically, even though I had to kind of, you know, there was a lot to do because Orion went into bankruptcy right when they were involved with the screenplay.

Right. And this. Yeah. So there was a lot to do about trying to get the movie released and all that. And I had a deal with Orion and I was had a producing deal with Orion at that time. So I was producing other movies to Ryan. So, yeah, I might as well produce a little on tape. he's a Ryan. So yeah, I might as well have produced a little on tape. But I, I, I do, I do. I like producing my own films. Yeah. Other than that, I don't enjoy producing. Yeah. I think it's hard. It's hard because you're always looking for things that are wrong and there's a lot of like manipulation and there's a lot of like strategizing people and working them against each other or for each other. And that's just,

it's just not my way. Yeah. I read that. And that's what's horrible about reading when I read about how movies are made and how the actors are just played like game pieces and, and because of their egos and their neediness, they're, they're, they're either, they don't really realize it or they're just willing to, to, to be used like that. It's sort of, it's very disconcerting as an actor, in a way, to realize that, you know, management and talent agents and producers are just going to pitch you against yourselves, against other people. They're going to use you as a bargaining chip. There's a million things that talent gets used for. Yeah, that's true. true and i mean the whole point of having a production company

um was to protect people was to protect filmmakers right to protect the process and to protect the the product yeah that's why i called it egg you know that idea of sort of your production protection yeah yeah and um and we made some you know i don't think i'm the greatest producer in the world but we made some movies that I'm really proud of. There isn't any film that we made that I'm not proud of. And yet at the same time, it was clear when I finished the 12 years of producing that like, yeah,

I was done. It's enough of that. I thought Nell was a, a pretty gutsy movie. It's really like to, to, to, to do that role.

I mean, gutsy movie. It's really like to do that role. I mean, your ability or your willingness to explore certain types of vulnerability is pretty amazing. I mean, like it must, it's pretty terrifying for me to even think about really all of them, like the accused or Clarice or Nell specifically, who was basic. I mean, I know he felt a little insecure about the accused for these reasons, but did you feel uncomfortable with the vulnerability in retrospect of Nell? I think that I was, I mean, obviously I was drawn to Nell because I developed the play and got it off the ground and did all the years of work that I did to get that on screen but I was scared of it um she is the most unlike me of

anything that I've ever played and I didn't know that I would have what it took I think that I was scared of vulnerability and scared of being somebody like that like I thought that if I was like that I would just explode that if I was like that, I would just explode into a million pieces. Like I just couldn't imagine what that would be. And I didn't really know how to create that character. I was just so, so confused about how to create that character. And so it really was the greatest acting lesson of my life

where I realized like, oh, all I have to do is drink coffee and show up and it will come because it's inside. There wasn't any books I can read particularly or research that I could do. Like I had to just trust that when somebody said action, that I would be able to be there. And you had to let go of a lot of who you, a lot of the construction of you. Yeah. I mean, it didn't mean that I didn't like going to a trance or anything. who you uh a lot of the love who i am the construction of you yeah i mean you know it didn't mean that i didn't like going to a trance or anything right no but you let yourself be

you let yourself be unafraid i let myself be unafraid and i i really um i think that i allowed myself to believe in trolls. Right. And you have to believe in trolls sometimes. And it doesn't really matter whether they're real or not. It's because the belief is, you know, that's the whole point. Right. You know, when you're shepherding an audience through an experience like that, you have to be 100% authentic or the movie doesn't work. So there's a lot of pressure that comes with that.

authentic or the movie doesn't work. So there's, there's a lot of pressure that comes with that, but there's also a lot of, um, power to the fact that it's all riding on your performance. And if it's real, it works. And if it's not real, it doesn't work. Right. And you can see parts like I, like I, I haven't done a lot of movies, but I imagine that as somebody who's done a lot of movies, when you look back at the ones where you can say, like, I don't know if I was there, I don't love that performance. You just, you just let it go. Right. I mean, you, you know, you can't get hung up on it. Yeah. Well, you can get hung up on it. You can waste a lot of years getting hung up. No, I don't. I mean, that's something I learned as a child that as an actor, I just don't have any control of it and I have to just go. And there rituals to do that i feel like there's always a ritual about that you know um letting go when

i'm when i'm hanging out the window on my way to the airport after the wrap party yeah and you know we wrapped at 6 a.m and i like threw all my shit in my thing and then there i am and i'm out the window and i i undo the window and i realized like half of me just finished this massive thing. Right. Like I just finished climbing Mount Everest. Yeah. So I'm like, and then the other half is like not quite back in the real life of who I am. And there's a little fear about that. That's the most delicious moment. And that's like, I feel like that's a ritual for me where I just go like, okay, yeah, yeah, that's over now. That weird, the in-between, the relief of being in between worlds. Yeah. Where you don't have the anxiety of like, do I measure up? You know, can I do it? No, you just did it. It's done. And then 10 minutes later, or when you get off the plane on the other

side in LA, suddenly you're gonna be like,, yeah, with anxiety that you don't measure up. You know, oh, my God. I don't know how you know. It's amazing that you still that that happens having spent your life in show business. But I guess that's the nature of this town. I think it fuels it, too. You know, for sure. Insecurity feels that you want to do the right thing you want to do you

want to go deeper you want to be better because you keep looking for people to love you or for you to love yourself if you're better do you want you want to be right if i can get better people more people are going to love me so i better get better and you got you want to be recognized for it and you're putting your your life you're putting your creativity in the hands of i mean i you know throughout your life mostly a lot of, I mean, I, you know, throughout your life, mostly a lot of men, that's for sure. Like directors. I mean, I, I want to be judged for the best thing that I am. I don't want to be judged for like my shoes, right. You know, or some, some dumb thing I want to judge, you know, so that's why it, it, it forces me to give as much as possible to go as deep as possible to be as authentic as possible because I'm afraid I don't trust anything else. Like I'm not very good at picking shoes.

So if we're going to judge me on my shoes, like I'm going to fail. I think that's true. And there's certain movies, there's certain movies that are like that. I mean, flight plan, for example, you know, that's a super genre movie about like woman on a plane missing your child and there's a terrorist or you know and those kind of that movie was really hard because all the pressure was for me as a character to transcend all that other stuff like if you don't believe her the whole movie's shit right so there was a lot of a lot of pressure to make sure that you create a character that is 100 real right well you brought this up twice so that was a real lesson that movie oh yeah did i bring it up twice yes it was it was hard it was a hard movie

yeah the challenge of doing you know a film that in some ways is kind of like a Hollywood construct. Right. And, you know, imbuing it with that heart and that realism to allow people to grab onto that so that they can believe in trolls, you know? Right. And, like, you've worked with some, like, Fincher. You work with Fincher. And everybody says that's a, like, you want to hear a funny thing about Fincher. I did a two and a half hour conversation with him. Right. And he didn't, he, he didn't think it was right.

So he, no, he wouldn't let us release it. So I'm sitting on this two and a half hour conversation with David Fincher. He's like, I don't know, know let's let's hold off on it because i think i could do more so like he's yeah but he's crazy right he seems to be this like this perfectionist you know a tormented guy he is and he's really funny and i love him yeah you know he's i just he just makes me want to put my arms around him and tell him, you know what? It is going to be okay. It's really going to be okay. You need to like chillax. And I love him for it. I love him that he is so committed and that he gives a hundred thousand times more than anybody else on that movie.

I mean, and he can do any of our jobs better than we can. I mean, he's a better actor than I am. He's a better prop master. He's a better DP. Really? So I'm always just bowed down in the presence of somebody who really is just so gifted and so committed, but it's hard to be David Fincher. I wouldn't want to be him. But he didn't drive you crazy. Do you, after he doesn't drive me crazy,

I love him. He makes me laugh. Right. And it's true that it's annoying that you have to do as many takes as you do. And I was pregnant. So don't forget, I was pregnant on pancrum. And, and by the end of it, I mean, you know, I was six months, we're almost six months pregnant by the end of it. And by the end of it, I couldn't move. I literally could not walk down the street. I couldn't move. I had to go on bedrest after that for another three weeks. And, and despite all of that, like I would just do anything for him. I would do anything for that guy. He, um, I, I see because I'm a good technician. I understand what he's looking for.

Like I understand the perfection that he's looking for, even though it might be minuscule and tiny and unattainable. And I will stand behind him and just say, like, I feel so sorry for you. You can't let that go. I just, you know, you got to let that go. Yeah. He's never going to. That's what makes his movies amazing.

Yeah. But I wonder how, well, I don't know how close you are with him. How does he generally feel about his movies as finished products? Oh, he, I mean, he should be putting a home at the end of every movie. Honestly, it's why he makes so few films. And every time he makes one, he says, I'm never doing it again. Never. I mean, in some ways, like I could really see, I could see Fincher's whole process all over Mank. Yeah. I just especially love the filmmaking. I thought the filmmaking was amazing. Yes. And that is an incredible story. And I don't, I'm not sure that all the story was told there.

Right. Because the, the, the relationship between Orson Welles and Mankiewicz is so fascinating. What happened afterwards is so fascinating. And I'm not sure they touched on that. I'm not, I'm not sure he wanted to,

I can't, I'm not sure what he was. I think he was trying to make it Mankiewicz's movie and not Orson Welles movie. Yeah. And maybe he left some juicy shit. Maybe yeah maybe maybe maybe that's what happened but there but there's um just that idea of giving everything you know you give everything for the opportunity to make a great work of art yeah and sometimes And sometimes it works. Given blood, you've given years of your life, right?

Years. You'll never get back. You gave up your relationships. You gave up your liver. You gave up, you know, everything. And then you hand this child over that you've protected and created.

And somebody else is like, Oh, let's make it a comedy. Let's put a bow on it. Let's, you know, I mean mean you can see his like injustice the injustice of it all kind of on screen yeah yeah yeah but the end of a movie every time that i see him at the end of having created a film or even when i see him at an award show and he's created an award for it he's traumatized by the experience of having made that movie always traumatized well

i mean like what you just said is so powerful because you do what you put all that time and effort and sweat and life and love and all of that into it and you put it out in the world and some idiot can just go like that was okay you're like you know without even you know really absorbing i wish i could see is such a genius i wish i could just like take some of my dna out of my bloodstream and just like inject it into him um so that he's able to say to his child like yeah you know i wanted you to be a doctor right but this is your life and i i did the best i could but obviously you like music right and you're a great musician. I can't play piano.

But you like it. And more power to you. And I hope you get that scholarship. And when you do, I'll be standing in the audience going like, whatever it is you do with your life, even if you work at Petco. Right. Like, that's kind of the, I wish I could take that out of my veins and put it into him. But it's not possible. Oh. it's interesting that you have this, like, it seems that like through the course of just even this conversation that there's definitely these guys in your life that

you respect, you know, their, their talent, their hearts, but you, but you feel deep connections with them. Is it because you don't have a relationship with your real dad, right? No, I've almost never met him i only met him a couple times in my life almost never met him ever well i met him on the street a couple times like on purpose i met him when he got when he got yeah uh no no by accident a couple times two two three times i met him by accident um because i live in la i live like you know not far from him four times i've met him by accident and then one time i uh i organized it yeah how well what how did you it's like 90 oh when he was 90 now yeah because my my

kids wanted to meet him and and how did that go it went great he's a really entertaining you know old he wasn't he died recently he's an entertaining old dude you know he had his wits about him super sharp and he could you know spin a lie like nobody's business oh yeah super entertaining but it's interesting that you mentioned that like that i have these guys that i have this fondness for and you know i was raised in an industry where there are no women it was just me and then sometimes it was a script supervisor and occasionally a makeup artist but other than that yeah it was just me and a guys and sometimes the lady that played my mom but other than that it was me and a whole bunch of guys in some small town in

like you know columbus ohio columbia ohio or wherever i am and um they were my brothers you know and my dads and they taught me lessons and they taught me how to be a gentleman and they taught me right and wrong and how to do the right thing. And, you know, and the directors and other actors that I've worked with, you know, I really like these guys that are complicated guys that not everybody loves and I will do anything for them. Like I am, I'm the sister who laughs at their jokes and just loves them. I just love them. It seems like you keep, but it's ongoing. It seems like you add new ones every few years. Like you're still open to, for a few new ones to come in. Like I, like, like Mel Gibson is a, is a problematic person to a lot of people,

but you guys seem to genuinely like get each other. Yes. And he is a problematic person and he is warm and affectionate and loving and a really good friend and fascinating and sprightly and and a and a and childlike and you know he's all those things as well good actor great actor a great actor and a deep deep person i think that's probably what has gotten him into so much trouble. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, just that I think that he's a, he's a deep, deep person and, and the beaver, the character and the beaver, you know, what he brought to that, I will always be grateful. That's a tremendous performance. And that came from his bowels. I mean,

that really came from his gut and that was a lot to give. That was a real gift that he gave to me. Well, that, well, I think there is something to be said in terms of your appreciation of what goes into what you do and what the people in your business do. Because I said to my producer when I was thinking about Mel Gibson, I'm like, what did they bury a body together? What is it? How is it? Like, what is the secret that bonds them? But think it's it seems to be that your appreciation for what really goes into what we do uh and look he um you know as i i say to my kids we always

laugh about this and i say to my kids i say look if you well i don't actually say this i say something much worse but i will say the nice version to you. If you rob a 7-Eleven, I'm going to call the police and take you to jail, but then I'm going to visit you in jail every day. And it's not that, you know, I don't condone necessarily people's behaviors that are wrong, but I can't not love my children. I can't not love my family members. And that means that you, you know, it's kind of Christian, you know, it's a little Catholic of me too. Not that I was raised as a Christian, but it's, you don't abandon people in their worst moments of struggling. You extend your hand to try to teach them and to help them

be a better human. Yeah. It's a tolerance and an empathy that, that requires some vigilance for a lot of people, you know, too. And he's helped me, you know, he's helped me be a better person too. Well, that's great. And in terms of acting, like, I mean, there seemed to be points where, cause like I, the, the new movie, the Mortanian, like there seems to be points, like I watched, I rewatched the speech at the Golden Globes where, you know, the not coming out speech,

but there was also, but there was also, it's so funny because that was framed by the press as a coming out speech. That you couldn't win. You know, Oh no, I won. You did win.

I won because they had to quote the part where I said, even though I knew what they were going to do. Yeah. Oh, good. I won. Good, good, good. But the point was made and the point still holds. And it's the same point in some ways, like a lesson that was probably part of the an extension of the lesson from the events with John Hinckley that, you know, you you protect your private life and your private, you know, what at whatever cost so you can have it. Well, so that I can be a living,

surviving person, as opposed to a dead person in a hotel room with a syringe in their arm, you know, as, as awful an analogy as that is, um, I have survived intact. And I think as a fairly well-adjusted person, even though I'm crazy about certain things like my computer, I've survived intact by coming up with a scuba mask, for lack of a better word. I have a reed that allows me to breathe. Right. a better word you know i have a read that allows me to breathe right and um uh i i those survival those survival tools are important in order to uh in order for somebody to become a whole person

right yeah and it's hard it can take a a long time to become a whole person yeah i mean i'm not even sure i'm there yet yeah i mean either i. I feel that all the time. Like, you know, am I, am I me? Well, the worst is when, as you get older, I just start feeling like I start seeing other people that are blowhards or people that are like super selfish and completely self-absorbed. And, you know, and I'm just like, I was like that too. I'm still that that's awful oh no no you you're able to really be humble and be humbled by uh your consciousness right well you know what I I stopped doing it's like you know I started embracing the uh the the phrase I don't know I don't know yeah yeah I don't know like you know like if I don't know something i'm gonna say it you know as opposed to pretend i

know it or or you know half-ass the answer i'm just like not i don't fucking know i you know that's good i'm gonna yes that's that is oh embrace i don't know the humility of embracing i don't know is the best um yeah i mean muhammadu's story's story. So for the Mauritanian, that's another reason why I was so attracted to this is really because of who Mohamedou is. and was terrorized just like, you know, we were. We were, right. We were 11. And what he did with it is that through faith and through love and awareness, he was able to become a better person. And he is forgiving.

He is genuinely joyful. He is- This is a real guy, but he paid like- Somebody who appreciates life and lives in the moment and is kind of childlike and curious about everyone and doesn't have a mean bone in his body and um that could have broken him that could have turned him into oh my god are you kidding i mean that was crazy i mean i thought that the real footage of him at the end over the credits yeah thank god they put that in there because I get it.

And that's really who he is. Like he's just like goofy, goofy, just delicious, affectionate. But he was in Gitmo for 14 years. Yeah. Like, but now I guess the question coming at this, guys, this is a story about him, but it's also about this lawyer, Nancy Holl hollander who like out of nowhere like i grew up in albuquerque so when all of a sudden we're in albuquerque i'm like oh my god how did i not know this person but um but it's about her taking on the case of of uh someone who was

crowded up in post 9-11 uh and accused of of being one of the masterminds of 9-11 because of uh some phone calls and he was renditioned and then ended up in Guantanamo. And he was tortured. But what shook me up was that even after it was conclusive that he probably was not involved, you know, they kept him in there for another seven years, eight years. Yeah. Well, they knew he wasn't involved. I mean, they had to have known that he wasn't involved fairly early on because they were never able to corroborate any of this of the assertions.

And they never charged him. Right. So it was really the habeas case that allowed Nancy's habeas case when she took to the judge and said, look, you know, you can't keep people for no reason in a prison without telling them what they're there for. know you can't keep people for no reason in a prison without telling them what they're there for and the judge said you're right um and all the evidence uh that they had against him had been gotten out of torture uh just you know really one set of questions after seven years of being tortured yeah he had one session of confessions where he admitted to everything including being pope like basically he was just like whatever right um and um when that was thrown out and they said you can return home the administration kept him another five years just because and these are a democratic administration i mean this was not it's not obama yeah so when you decide to do a movie like this because i mean you sort of pick and choose fairly

specifically now you can i mean how do you choose a role? Outside of the story of him, was the story of Nancy compelling to you? I love the character. You know, this idea. And she's somebody that is a hero to me. She is there to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law, to uphold social justice and civil rights, even though a good portion, if not all of most of her clients are guilty. Right. And she's like, you know, I don't have a problem. I don't care what she'll say. I mean, I don't know. You know, it's sort of her bravado. I don't care whether they're guilty. Right. guilty or not guilty. If the government has a case against them, then let them go to prison for the rest of their lives. I don't care, but they deserve to be defended.

And how was Kevin McDonald to work with? Kevin McDonald's amazing. He's so the right guy for this. He has this great documentary understanding of documentary and facts and incredibly well-researched and this sort of beautiful, even approach to being able to see all the characters, all the characters have a point of view, but he also is just a great cinema director. I think he loves being inside one character and then just looking around and saying, how does that feel? What does that look like? And that's what really makes him different than a documentarian. What does that look like?

And that's what really makes him different than a documentarian. Yeah. He seems like a smart director. I had one of the biggest faux pas of my life was with that guy. Really? Yeah. Because I had him booked on this show, right, to interview him. And I thought it was Kevin MacDonald from Kids in the Hall. Oh, my God.

That's hilarious. I was expecting Kevin MacDonald from Kids in the Hall. And Kevin MacDonald, the film director, showed up. And I had no idea who he was. And I had to tell him to wait in my house, run out to my computer to figure out if I had seen anything he'd done. So I could not. And I didn't tell him what was happening. That's amazing.

So I interviewed him for like a half hour, 35 minutes, which was short for me. And then i couldn't put it up until i interviewed the other kevin mcdonald and i think i i think i i believe i put them up together and i don't think that the film directing kevin mcdonald it thought it was very funny but it was that's hilarious what was it for what movie was it for it was for it was for the one um oh which one was it hold on i can tell you because i i really thought that like when i talked to the publicist that showed up at my house how do you spell him is it mcd mac oh that was the big problem right there yeah um when he showed when the publicist showed up at my house i was like you know so he's directing now

that's kind of interesting you know like i was literally thought that i was still talking it was crazy man it was so stupid hold on i'm gonna tell you it was with sirsha ronan oh yeah it was how i live now is what it was called but i hadn't seen it and it was like because i was so i didn't think i would need to because i'm like, Kevin MacDonald will talk about Kids in the Hall who cares about the new movie. You know, like. But I did know your work,

so that was good. And I did. Yay. I did watch the Mauritanian and I was also excited to get into some of the other stuff and remember our childhood together,

you on the screen. Yes. Me in the movies. That's right. Yes, too bad we didn't meet i know well i've been watching you know and you do see i imagine you had freckles i think you had freckles didn't you some i had some sunspot freckles not real that's right albuquerque yeah yeah i got i was on the swim team and you know i had my little my little swim team freckles and

and uh chlorinated hair. Um, but it was great talking to you. You are definitely you, which was exciting. That's wonderful. Well, thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. Meet you and maybe we'll do this again. Sure. Maybe I'll see you around town once we're able to go outside. Yeah, maybe. All right. At that point you'll have one of those big long, you know, I've done that before. I'm not doing that. I get up.

I get dressed. I shower. I act like I have a lot of things to do. I put boots on. I walk around. I have not surrendered to the isolation or the possible despair. I just want you to know that I do have my jogging pants on. Well, we did work today.

We both did some work. That's true. Take it easy, Jodi. All right. Take care. That was an honor and a treat, people, to speak with Jodi Foster. God, she's great. The Mauritanian is in theaters now and will be available on digital platforms in the near future.

Okay, guitar time. I know, I repeat myself. I repeat myself. I repeat myself sometimes. © B Emily Beynon Boomer lives. Monkey. Lafonda. And, uh, Cat angels everywhere. We'll be right back. Vinyl lice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders? No, but chicken tenders? Yes, because those are groceries, and we deliver those too.

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