Foster has worked as an actress since she was three, starring in movies such as “Taxi Driver” and “Freaky Friday” as a teen.

Jodie Foster says early career success protected her from sexual abuse in Hollywood: ‘I could’ve ruined people’s careers’

Foster has worked as an actress since she was three, starring in movies such as "Taxi Driver" and "Freaky Friday" as a teen.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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January 14, 2026 7:34 p.m. ET

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Jodie Foster stars in 'Taxi Driver' at 12. Credit:

The trope is that child stars don't escape Hollywood unscathed, and for good reason. There are countless stories of later struggles with an inability to find work as adults, substance abuse, and sexual abuse. But not when it comes to Jodie Foster.

The actress, who began acting when she was three, has thought about how she managed to escape the latter.

"I've really had to examine that, like, how did I get saved?" she told Terry Gross on Tuesday's episode of NPR's *Fresh Air*. "There were microaggressions, of course. Anybody who's in the workplace has had misogynist microaggressions. That's just a part of being a woman, right? But what kept me from having those bad experiences, those terrible experiences? And what I came to believe … is that I had a certain amount of power by the time I was, like, 12."

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That was the year that Foster starred in the gritty drama *Taxi Driver*, which was directed by Martin Scorsese and costarred Robert De Niro and Cybill Shepherd. She was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Supporting Actress category the following year for her portrayal of child prostitute Iris Steensma.

"By the time I had my first Oscar nomination, I was part of a different category of people that had power and I was too dangerous to touch," Foster said. "I could've ruined people's careers or I could've called 'Uncle,' so I wasn't on the block."

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Foster's late mother, Evelyn "Brandy" Foster, was her manager and selected projects for her. The star's early work also included the original *Freaky Friday*, *Foxes*, and *Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore*.

Now 63, Foster has gone on to act in movies such as *The Accused*, *The Silence of the Lambs, Nell, *and *Nyad*, earning Oscars for the first two and nominations for the other two. She directed *Money Monster*, with Julia Roberts and George Clooney, and *Home for the Holidays*, which starred Holly Hunter and Robert Downey Jr.

Jodie Foster reflects on her days as a child star.

Marc Piasecki/WireImage

"It also might be just my personality, that I am a head-first person and I approach the world in a head-first way," Foster told Gross. "It's very difficult to emotionally manipulate me because I don't operate with my emotions on the surface."

The actress noted that she was able to come out the other side of what has proven to be a precarious position for many.****"There's two things that can happen as a child actor: One is you develop resilience, and you come up with a plan and a way to survive intact, and there are real advantages to that in life," Foster said. "And I really feel grateful for the advantages that that's given me, the benefits that that has given me. Or the other is you totally fall apart and you can't take it."

Foster's latest movie, *A Private Life*, arrives in theaters Jan. 16.**

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