"I had secondary parts before, but I was actually afraid" - Jodie Foster on how language was a 'huge challenge' in signing French films 

Jodie Foster may have overcome several hurdles in her acting career, but signing French films was a "huge challenge."

The actress, whose latest French psychological thriller mystery film, Vie Privée, is slated to come out this November, reflected on how she was “too scared” to take on leading roles in French films preceding her recent one, despite having been offered the same many times.

“I had secondary parts [in French films] before, but I was actually afraid,” Jodie Foster said during the press conference, Variety has reported. “A number of directors offered me projects but I was too scared to act in French. I thought someone who was more familiar with French should do so. But I don’t really remember how things worked out this time around.”

Jodie Foster says she's a different person when she's acting in French: Read more

As reported by Variety, Jodie Foster spoke in French for almost the entire press conference, where she reflected on how leading a French film was what she had “wanted to do for a long time,” but learning the dialogue was a “huge challenge.”

“The great thing is that when I act in French, I’m a totally different person,” she added. “I have a much higher voice, I’m much less confident and I get very frustrated because I can’t express myself as well. And so it actually creates a new kind of character for me.”

In another article published by the outlet, the veteran actress also reflected on her movie-picking process:

“I’m picky,” she admitted. “I’m not really interested in acting just for the sake of acting. It has to really speak to me.”

Vie Privée made its debut at the renowned film festival, where it received a whopping 8-minute standing ovation. Directed and written by French filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski, Jodie Foster embodies the role of a therapist who's convinced that her therapist was murdered and not the suicide it is believed to be.

“Rebecca has this command of the intellectual world, as well as the emotional world,” the 62-year-old actress said. “We think about cinema in the same way. She wanted to make sure that the audience was brought into the interior life of the character, and that’s what I enjoy doing as an actor.”

The film marks Jodie Foster's first film shot in France since she filmed A Very Long Engagement in 2004.

“I’ve been wanting to go back and do a French movie, because I haven’t done one in a long time,” Foster told the outlet just before the film premiered. “For me, it’s always about trying to find the right piece of material. I didn’t want to do some overblown American and French co-production. As an actor, I need a story. And a lot of French movies, which I love, are behavior films where you just sort of follow people around for three days or something. That’s not what I do. I’m interested in narrative. I’m all about developing a character who propels the story. This ticked all the boxes.”

The former child star, who began her career as a model at the age of 3, also told the outlet that she simply cannot resonate with juvenile actors who “just want to act” and “don’t care if the movie’s bad.”

“I see a lot of young actors, and I’m not saying I’m jealous, but I don’t understand how they just want to act. They don’t care if the movie’s bad. They don’t care if the dialogue is bad. They don’t care if they’re a grape in a Fruit of the Loom ad,” she said. “If I never acted again, I wouldn’t really care. I really like to be a vessel for story or cinema. If I could do something else, if I was a writer or a painter or sculptor, that would be good too. But this is the only skill I have.”

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Jodie Foster was nominated for her first Oscar at the age of 14, for her contributions to Taxi Driver. She told the outlier that in her career, she had “worked so much” by the time she turned 18 that by then, she needed to become more picky with the projects she chose.

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