Jodie Foster

Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster (born November 19, 1962) is an American actress and filmmaker. Foster started her career as a child actor before establishing herself as leading actress in film. She has received several accolades including two Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Foster also was awarded with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2013 and the Honorary Palme d'Or in 2021.

Foster began her career as a child model and gained recognition as a teen idol through Disney films including Napoleon and Samantha (1972), Freaky Friday (1976), and Candleshoe (1977). She appeared in Martin Scorsese's comedy-drama Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974). For her role as a 12-year-old prostitute in Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Other early films include Tom Sawyer (1973), Bugsy Malone (1976), The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976), Carny (1980), and Foxes (1980).

After attending Yale University, Foster transitioned into mature leading roles and won Academy Awards for Best Actress for playing a rape victim in The Accused (1988) and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). She was also nominated for Nell (1994) and Nyad (2023). She has acted in Sommersby (1993), Maverick (1994), Contact (1997), Anna and the King (1999), Panic Room (2002), Flightplan (2005), Inside Man (2006), The Brave One (2007), Nim's Island (2008), Carnage (2011), Elysium (2013), and The Mauritanian (2021). On television, she starred in the HBO anthology series True Detective: Night Country (2024), for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award.

Foster has directed four feature length films: Little Man Tate (1991), Home for the Holidays (1995), The Beaver (2011), and Money Monster (2016). She founded a production company, Egg Pictures, in 1992. Foster also received Primetime Emmy nominations for producing The Baby Dance (1998) and for directing the Orange Is the New Black episode "Lesbian Request Denied" (2013). She has also directed episodes of Tales from the Darkside (1988), House of Cards (2014), the Black Mirror episode "Arkangel" (2017), and Tales from the Loop (2020).

Alicia Christian Foster was born on November 19, 1962, in Los Angeles, California, the youngest child of Evelyn Ella "Brandy" (née Almond; 1928–2019) and Lucius Fisher Foster III, a businessman. She is of German, Irish, and English heritage. On her father's side, she is descended from John Alden, who arrived in North America on the Mayflower in 1620.

Her parents' marriage ended before she was born, and she never established a relationship with her father. She has three older full siblings: Lucinda, Constance "Connie", and Lucius "Buddy"; as well as three half-brothers from her father's earlier marriage. Following the divorce, Brandy raised the children with her female partner in Los Angeles. She worked as a publicist for film producer Arthur P. Jacobs until focusing on managing the acting careers of Buddy and Jodie. Although Foster was officially named Alicia, her siblings began calling her "Jodie", and the name stuck.

Foster was a gifted child who learned to read at age three. She attended the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, a French-language prep school. Her fluency in French has enabled her to act in French films. She also dubs herself in French-language versions of most of her English-language films. At her graduation in 1980, she delivered the valedictorian address for the school's French division.

She subsequently studied at Yale University, where she majored in African-American literature. She wrote her thesis on Toni Morrison under the guidance of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and graduated magna cum laude in 1985. She returned to Yale in 1993 to address the graduating class and received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1997. In 2018, she was awarded the Yale Undergraduate Lifetime Achievement Award.