NEED TO KNOW
Jodie Foster is director Wes Anderson’s dream on-camera muse.
In an interview with Collider published Tuesday, June 3, the filmmaker, 56, hesitated when asked about an actor he hasn’t yet worked with. “I probably shouldn’t share,” he began, before giving in: “Over the years, I had so many movies that I tried to get Jodie Foster to be in.”
Praising the two-time Oscar winner, 62, The Phoenician Scheme writer-director revealed that he and his team reached out to offer her a part in “every movie” of his.
“I think I did it three movies in a row, maybe four,” Anderson said. “And I met her, and I liked her. And I thought it was going to get her. And I think she’s just great.”
When asked which of his specific past projects those offers applied to, Anderson declined to answer. “I don’t like to say, because if I say, then you say, ‘Oh, you mean so-and-so, who’s in the movie, wasn’t your first choice.’ And so I don’t want that to be a thing.”
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Foster and Anderson have been honored at the same awards shows as recently as the 2024 Academy Awards ceremony, when the actress was nominated for her supporting work in Nyad and the director won his first Oscar, for Best Live Action Short for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.
The Asteroid City filmmaker told Collider he “still would like to get Jodie Foster,” speculating that “sometimes somebody has an idea of the kind of work they want to do at that time in his or her life, and we weren’t right.”
He added, “But anyway, she’s pretty amazing.”
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Courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features
Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, from a story co-written by Roman Coppola, stars Benicio del Toro as fictional industrialist Zsa-zsa Korda, who embarks on a new enterprise with his daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) and tutor Bjørn (Michael Cera). As in past features from the director, it features an all-star ensemble cast.
Among Foster’s upcoming projects is the French-language thriller Vie Privée (in English, A Private Life), which premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 20. In the Rebecca Zlotowski-directed film, the Silence of the Lambs star plays a therapist becoming convinced that a patient’s suicide was actually a murder. Sony Pictures Classics has yet to announce a release date.
Foster also starred in the fourth season of True Detective, now streaming on Max.
