Keeping it all under control

Actress Jodie Foster flexes muscles as a protective mother in Panic Room

If there's one word to describe Jodie Foster, that's Control. It's how the 40-year-old actress has managed to pull herself out of a dark sea of drowning child stars, on how she managed to keep her private life private and her professional life respected. From becoming the only person under 30 to win two Academy Awards (The Accused, The Silence of the Lambs), to building a mega-million dollar production company, the former Coppertone toddler is straight talk and no frills.
Her priorities are clear: when the opportunity came to star in David Fincher's Panic Room after Nicole Kidman dropped out following a leg injury incurred on the set of Moulin Rouge, Foster jumped on it turning down the presidency of the Cannes jury last year in order to take the role.
Panic Room centres on a recently separated woman (Foster) who locks herself and her young daughter (Kristen Stewart) in their home's 'panic room' to avoid three deadly intruders (Dwight Yoakam, Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto).
Tandem talked to Jodie Foster about Panic Room.

Are you more of director or actor?
"Director. I'm not really built to be an actor. I don't really have an actor's personality and in some ways it's been a liability for me, because I don't make movies to act. I just want to make movies. I really love movies, I really want to be involved with them. If you said to me I had to be a mixer or a boom guy or a carpenter, I'd say OK, I'm there. I like to be part of the storytelling and that's what I get into. The first reason I take on a role is the story and the script, the second is the director, and really way down there is the part. And very often if the part is just not good enough and the script is something that I really like, I'll say I'll work on the part. Most actors don't have a director's sensibility. They have an actor's sensibility, which means that instead of looking at the big picture they look at the moment."

You, Whitaker and Yoakam are all directors. Did that crossover in your performances as well?
"Yeah, all three of us have directed movies, very different kind of movies but I think that helps somebody like David Fincher because we really know how hard it is to direct and we respect that we're there to serve him. It's all about his vision, his story. We're there to help him tell the story that he wants in the way that he wants. Our job is really to find out how to add our little details onto his trade."

How aware were you of his unique camera style?
"Well, you can't be unaware of it because people don't really realize the demands of a very highly technical movie that's very sculpted, very crafted, very composed. The demands that it brings to the rest of the crew and to the actors. What it means is that you have 40 takes regularly, every single day because you have to accommodate every facet that's in his head. And I love that. I love having a director who knows what he wants no matter how controlling it is. I love being told what to do."

But not every actor can handle that.
"It's a discipline. If I had one piece of advice for David Fincher it's don't ever hire actors who are inexperienced because they can't do that. It takes many, many, many years to understand how films are made and then to be able to bring the spontaneity and bring the freshness and recreate everything and accommodate every note at the same time. Experience is pretty crucial."

You've had experience working with child actors when you directed Little Man Tate. How was Kristen Stewart to work with?
"Great. I love kid actors because they never talk about the part or about the movie, they just do it. They don't belabour it, so for me it's much less stressful because I can relax in between breaks. So we spent a lot of time talking about U2 and the difference between Britney Spears and Cristina Aquilera and how one should wear one's pants, things like that. She's got amazing focus. It's very hard to find a kid, by the way, who can do 40 takes because after five they say 'I'm done, I want to go home.' It's very boring to them."
Did being a mother playing a mother help?
"I think I'm a pretty maternal person anyway. I played a lot of moms before I became a mom. It does change things, though. You have to admit that there's something very visceral, not just intellectual, about how you know that place, you know that you would do anything for them, the anguish of seeing your kid in pain is just not something you can describe. Anyone who has kids knows that you start sweating when you see your kid in pain."

But in the film you live out that pain.
"That's the beauty of being an actor is that you get to live out things that you're afraid of. You say maybe I can get to the end of it and survive it intact, and I can be the hero of my own story. It's kind of exorcising that fear. You hope you never live through something like this, though."

How do you decompress from a role like this?
"I like to go home and turn on the TV. I don't need to go to a club and go dancing, I need to go home. I'm one of those people that when I'm making a movie, I never go out to dinner. Ever, ever, ever, ever. I don't like the outside world to intrude when I'm making a film. I like to either see my family or work. I don't like to go out. So my way is to isolate myself."

Were there constraints in being limited to one room?
"It's a gift that's given to you, actually. Every time you're given information as an actor, then it's another piece of information you don't have to think about. You can't get out of the four walls, so you can't run, you can't jump up and down, you can't move from here, suddenly there are all sorts of choices you don't have to worry about. I don't see the constraints as limiting, it's more grateful."

Who was instrumental early on in your life that pushed you forward?
"I hate crediting my mom for things all the time, because she drives me crazy. But I have to credit her with really being the inspiration for when I was a child in the film business. She's the kind of person who would bore her child to death saying things like 'Well, if you're ever in the Mafia you should never be a stool pigeon,' and I would go 'I'm not in the Mafia, I don't need to know that.' But she was somebody who really wanted me to be respected and I think she spent a lot of time saying to me 'You're so lucky to be a woman because you can do anything you like. You can be a doctor, you can be lawyer, look at how smart you are.' She was very confidence building. And she's like that now with the grand kids as well. She's out there just pumping up their egos 24 hours a day. In a business that's so strangely narcissistic and at time strangely insecure she really was the anchor in my life."

Were you a confident child?
"I think I was. But I also think she's responsible for part of that confidence too. Because, let's face, the confidence you have as a young person is pretty fake. A lot of it is your parents and people around you telling you that you're worthy."


Panic Room is currently playing in local cinemas.

Publication Date: 2002-03-31
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=1140