Jodie Foster Remembers Taxi Driver
The portion of Jodie Foster's 2005 Inside the Actors Studio interview where she talks about the role that changed her career (and her life) and got her her first Oscar nomination: playing a 12-year-old runaway who finds work as a prostitute on the streets of New York City, as Iris in Taxi Driver.
Host James Lipton: At the age of 14, Jodie recieved an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in what she has referred to as "the film that changed my life." How did the role of Iris in Taxi Driver come to you?
Jodie Foster: Well, it's, uh, it's a great American classic, and I'm so proud to be in that movie. I sometimes just have to pinch myself, I can't believe that I was in that you film, you know. It's, uh, amazing to be part of American film history. Um, you know, mostly it changed my life because I'd worked for a very long time at that point, and I really thought that acting was... not a very intelligent thing to do. I thought that, uh, it seemed to me that all anyone ever said to me was, 'Act natural, act like yourself, be yourself.' And I thought, well, that's just not much of a profession, to, uh, repeat lines and be yourself, that doesn't seem like much of anything. And, um, I really, uh, realized, really through Robert De Niro and his work with me that, uh, creating a character was so much more than that, and that I had really missed out, and that there was this big world of, um, depth, and, um, intrigue and interest and mystery, with potential with every character that you had. And, uh, I didn't know that, and it kinda hit me like a lightning bolt one day, working with him.
JL: What precisely do you play in it?
JF: Oh, I play a child prostitute in New York City who's a runaway who, uh, is sort of under the spell of her pimp, played by Harvey Keitel, and, um, Robert de Niro is sort of a strange anti-hero who has a mission to become a significant person and he decides that the way to become significant is to, um, is to save her. And so he goes about killing all sorts of people to save her.
JL: How old were you?
JF: Twelve.
JL: Those scenes were something for a twelve-year-old to play.
JF: Well...
JL: The scene in which you... you offer him your services.
JF: Yes... uh, yes, but strangely enough, you know, I sometimes think of my life as having been very protected by my mom. I mean, I went to a strict school, I wore a uniform, I had a very close relationship with my mother. But she didn't keep information from me. She'd take me to see Bertolucci movies, and I think it was good, I think I had an understanding of human behavior. I don't think it's made me a loony. [laughs]
JL: Neither do I.
JF: Maybe a little bit of a loony, but not too much.
JL: No, not at all.
This is a companion piece to Brooke Shields talking about Pretty Baby, where she also played a child prostitute, and to a lesser extent, Shirley Temple talking about Baby Burlesks, where she played a Washington call-girl.