Jodie Foster Has Had Enough Of Superhero Movies - Here's Why
Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster is the latest Hollywood luminary to wade into the hot debate over the value of superhero movies.
Foster currently stars as swim coach Bonnie Stoll in "Nyad," the fact-based story of marathon swimmer Diana Nyad's (Annette Bening) superhuman feat of swimming more than 100 miles from Cuba to the Florida Keys in 2013. While discussing the film with Elle, however, Foster made it clear that she's grown tired of movies about superheroes of the fictional kind. "It's a phase. It's a phase that's lasted a little too long for me, but it's a phase, and I've seen so many different phases," Foster told Elle. "Hopefully people will be sick of it soon."
Foster did point out, however, that there are superhero films that she's enjoyed, including Marvel's "Iron Man" and "Black Panther," as well as the sci-fi blockbuster "The Matrix." "I marvel at those movies, and I'm swept up in the entertainment of it, but that's not why I became an actor. And those movies don't change my life," Foster told THR. "Hopefully there'll be room for everything else."
Foster, of course, isn't the first major film icon to make her feelings known about the superhero genre. Quentin Tarantino has taken aim at Marvel actors with blunt thoughts about the superhero genre, as has Martin Scorsese. The "Killers of the Flower Moon" filmmaker even expanded his argument in a GQ profile in September, when he slammed big blockbusters for hurting culture in a plea to save cinema.
Foster is concerned over how some young female actors present themselves
By tackling an argument as controversial as the cultural contribution of superhero movies, Jodie Foster is showing that she's not afraid to speak her mind. After all, Foster's career has spanned more than 50 years dating back to her screen debut in 1969, so there's no question her knowledge of an actor and business acumen she acquired along the way informs any debate she enters.
While Foster feels it's not her place to talk with young female actors about the career choices they make since those are personal decisions, she told Elle she's concerned with how they conduct themselves away from the set. "I find myself reaching out to girls who could be my daughters and saying, 'Wait a minute, you keep doing dumb things on publicity tours. What's going on with you? This is a little self-sabotage. You know better than that. Who's letting you do that? And where's your mom?'"
As such, Foster is happy to be in a position to influence female performers in a positive way.
"I do have this really big soft spot for the young actresses who came up as young people, because I just don't know how they survive without some mother around the way I had a mom around. To be able to say, 'You're overexposed,' or 'You're torturing yourself,' or 'You have to have faith in your talent," Foster explained to Elle. "You can go away for two years and have a life and come back and there will be work for you. Yeah, maybe it won't be in some franchise, but what do you care? This is your life."
"Nyad" is streaming exclusively on Netflix.