Jodie Foster (born November 19, 1962, Los Angeles, California, U.S.) is an American motion-picture actress and director who began her career as a tomboyish and mature child star. Although she demonstrated a flair for comedy, she is best known for her dramatic portrayals of misfit characters set against intimidating challenges in such movies as Taxi Driver (1976) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Early credits: Disney movies and Taxi Driver

Foster began her professional career as a very young child in television, appearing first in commercials. After repeated performances in such TV shows as Gunsmoke, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, and My Three Sons, she starred in her own short-lived series, Paper Moon (1974), based on the 1973 film of the same name. She also appeared in a number of Disney films, beginning with Napoleon and Samantha (1972).

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Director Martin Scorsese cast Foster in a bit part in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) before giving her the role of Iris, the 12-year-old prostitute who becomes the object of the title character’s obsession in Taxi Driver (1976); her precocious and complex performance earned her critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. Her later films as a child actress were less impressive, but her performances were consistently admired. Foster graduated magna cum laude from Yale University in 1985.

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The Silence of the Lambs and The Accused

Perhaps because of her screen image of early maturity, Foster was never dismissed as merely a child actress but instead was able to make a relatively smooth transition to adult roles. In The Accused (1988) she gave a remarkable performance as Sarah Tobias, a rape victim who struggles with inequities in the justice system. In The Silence of the Lambs (1991) she tracks a serial killer as FBI agent Clarice Starling. Both performances won her Academy Awards for best actress.

In the 1990s Foster branched into other areas of filmmaking. She made her big screen directorial debut with the drama Little Man Tate (1991), in which she also costarred, and she later directed the ensemble film Home for the Holidays (1995). She also served as a producer for several of her films, including Nell (1994), for which she received another Oscar nomination for best actress. In 1997 Foster starred in Contact, an adaptation of the science-fiction novel of the same name by Carl Sagan. Subsequent films in which she acted include the thrillers Panic Room (2002), Inside Man (2006), and The Brave One (2007); the satirical comedy Carnage (2011); and the dystopian drama Elysium (2013).

Later credits: Nyad and True Detective

In 2011 Foster directed and appeared in The Beaver, a drama about a depressed man (played by Mel Gibson) who finds a remedy of sorts in a hand puppet. She also helmed the Wall Street thriller Money Monster (2016), about a financial pundit (George Clooney) who is taken hostage. Foster directed episodes of a number of television series as well, including Tales from the Darkside, Orange Is the New Black, and House of Cards.

She later starred in Hotel Artemis (2018), playing a nurse who runs a clandestine emergency room for criminals, and in The Mauritanian (2021), which was based on the memoir of a man held at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp for 14 years. The latter film earned her a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actress. In 2023 she had a supporting role in Nyad, a film about real-life marathon swimmer Diana Nyad (Annette Bening); Foster played Nyad’s former partner Bonnie Stoll and was nominated for an Oscar for supporting actress. The following year she starred in True Detective: Night Country, the fourth season of the gritty television series. Foster received strong praise—as well as Emmy and Golden Globe awards—for her role as a police chief in Alaska investigating the disappearance of several scientists from a research station.

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Foster received the Cecil B. DeMille Award (a Golden Globe for lifetime achievement) in 2013.