I never thought a movie like “Barbie” would happen
Jodie Foster appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1991 when she was 28 and set to direct her first film, Little Man Tate. “It’s not nice to women” who aspire to become managers, she said at the time, but her tune has changed 32 years later.
“Sometimes I read things I said in my 20s and I wonder, ‘Really?’ But that’s a very good idea,” she recently told Time magazine in 2023 during an interview for her role in the HBO series True Detective: Night Country.
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“When I was growing up, there were no American female directors, maybe very few,” she said. “I didn’t think I was allowed to be a director. And that’s not true anymore. I couldn’t be prouder to see Greta Gerwig this year with Barbie. Not only was this amazing director honored, but it was because there were people behind her who said: “You’re not a risk. I never thought that would happen. So there’s a big smile on my face.”
“Barbie” has become the highest-grossing film of 2023 with $1.4 billion in ticket sales worldwide. This number also made it the highest-grossing film at Warner Bros. Pictures. date. It’s a fact Foster could never have predicted when she directed Little Man Tate, in which she also starred. The film was written by Scott Frank and centered around a seven-year-old prodigy. The film grossed $25 million — well over its $10 million production budget — and is the first of many films Foster has directed, including “The Beaver” (2011) and “Money Monster” (2016). Her television work is more expensive as a director of episodes of “House of Cards,” “Orange Is the New Black,” and “Black Mirror.”
While the rise of female directors is a welcome trend for Foster, the rise of comic book movies is not. During an interview with Elle magazine at the end of last year, Foster went viral for her criticism of superhero films.
“It’s a phase. It’s a phase that’s been going on for a very long time for me, but it’s a phase. I’ve seen a lot of different phases,” Foster said. “I hope people get sick of it soon. Good movies – like Iron Man, Black Panther, The Matrix – I marvel at those movies, and I’m entertained by them, but that’s not why I became an actor. These films do not change my life. Hopefully there will be room for everything else.”
Foster is currently in the Oscar race for Best Supporting Actress thanks to “Nyad,” which is now streaming on Netflix. It also leads HBO’s “True Detective: Night Country,” which premiered its first episode to 2 million viewers on HBO and Max.
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