In conversation with... Jodie Foster, on The Silence of the Lambs | BFI

it's getting five-star reviews don't you know I bet a lot how many people saw it in the actual movie theater when it came out oh that's quite a few I'm surprised that's great that's nice um quid pro quo yes or no is that okay wait stop good way to start and this is must be I mean what is the the the emotion of the feeling to come here to a room this warm of people 26 years after this film was originally released and get that reception well you know the this kind of experience to have a movie that came from such a wonderful book and inspired so many people to do the best work that they'll probably ever do their whole lives and then knowing that the film in some ways is timeless and lives on it's sort of the little pot at the end of the rainbow that you always hope for but you never get and then it's it's it's actually quite difficult because you get it I got it I was you know whatever I was 29 years old or something and I didn't realize it was kind of getting never happen again you know you sort of you don't realize how rare it is but it is rare and I feel very blessed am what what's the film about to you what do you think the films about because it's interesting hearing people tonight who've seen it again and go actually I hadn't realize that it's about this or that but for you well it's about a lot of things I can tell you the reason that I lobbied for it because I did try hard to get this movie I was not the first choice was because I had in my whole life had been playing a lot of victims so I'd Flynn playing a lot of women that had been acted upon and things had been done to them and that is a big part of women's history it would be remiss to to only play characters that are presidents or you know doctors I mean we a large part of our history has been about being acted upon and for me the reason that it was so important to make this movie was that there was a sort of healing process and almost like a growing up process to finally playing the woman who saves the women and that woman who is saving the woman sees a reflection of herself in the women that she's trying to save and when you think about the mythology that a movie like this comes from so a very classic mythology of you know a prince his country is suffering from an illness he is sent off into the woods and he meets gnomes and demons along the way and he goes into this forest of experience he's given the panacea to you know bring back finally indoors all these terrible things to bring back finally to his people having learned all these terrible things about himself this self-reflection and realizes that once he's cured his people that he will never be of his people again and that is an age-old classic myth but it's never been reserved for women so for me that was the most exciting thing was to say you know we're gonna take a classic human myth and ask ourselves why in the hell has this been only reserved for men in do is is there no such thing as female agency and is there a way to have a female character that can participate in this mythology you said you fought for this rule I did what did you do to convince everything it wasn't it was a big fight I mean I convincin I I knew that another actress was he that he was going to hire another act well first of all I read the book and then tracked down the book to buy the book and to try to produce the movie and I found that it was had already been bought by Orion and that they had already gotten writer on and so I called I knew everybody in Iran and I said just would like to tell you that I would really like to make this movie I just want an Oscar I thought okay you know I might have a shot at this and then the director was Gene Hackman actor you guys know he was going to play he was not gonna play Lecter I think he was gonna play Crawford and but he was gonna direct a movie was gonna be his first film as a director and he read the first draft came out and he read it and he said this is too violent I can't possibly make this movie he dropped out of the film and I found this out and I said okay well you dropped out of the movie but not but I'm gonna be considered for the next director and the studio said well no the next director is going to be Jonathan Demi and he's not interested in you so I was just devastated I knew that you know so I got on a plane he after he you know had offered the movie to somebody else I got on the plane I met with him in New York and I said I would just like to be your second choice and these are the reasons why and I kind of laid out all these reasons why and then I left and you know didn't think anything about it and then eventually gonna call amazing that's brilliant is it right that Sean Connery at one point was gonna play Lecter I don't remember Sean Connery no but it sounds good for your people doesn't it no no I terrible bus but there were a few other American actors that I think the studio were keen on of the variety that you might think you know whether it was Al Pacino Dustin Hoffman wrapped in here or that kind of thing and I think both Jonathan and I were very keen on the idea of having a British actor play it and specifically Anthony Hopkins because you know lectors and manipulator Lecter has has this way of using language and order to seduce and entice and to keep people at bay and we felt that the American style of kind of Stanislavski acting was really the wrong route I think you needed instead of it being you know why is this serial killer a serial killer you know you're not looking for emotional reasons I think you wanted to see the monster I think you really wanted to see that almost Shakespearean monster so that's why we jump the pond and they the relationship and the chemistry between you and Sarandon screeners is unbelievable it's just incredible but you never talked during the making of this and it was a dumb thing it was really dumb walked yeah I mean it wasn't on purpose we had done a rehearsal in New York City I'd got in there early and I sat down I got my stuff already I got in there early and so keen nobody else was there so I went away and took a phone call and by the time I got back everybody was sitting down so I never had a chance to say hello to him I just waved hello to him and we did this rehearsal we did the we read the whole script and she was petrifying news he was so scary that I couldn't bring myself to talk to him after the rehearsal so I left then he went off and did another movie and I did the whole first part of Silence of lambs without him he you know he only shot for like seven days or something I'm ten days of shooting let me be even less so I never saw him until halfway through the shoot and finally he came in and I didn't get a chance to work with him they screwed him into that door he was locked in there I was locked in there it took like 15 minutes to get him out there was a whole process with the Makita drill and everything in order to get him out so they put him behind the glass so I was like and then because the scenes were so long the scenes are like 10 pages long they're quite long we would do his side one day and then his stuff was done they done screw him and then they do my stuff the next day and much much of the dialogue is to camera if you noticed there's a lot of stuff that's direct to camera sort of a Hitchcock technique so some days I never even saw him and he never even saw me I would hear a voice behind the camera and he would hear voice behind the camera but we couldn't see each other so we would look directly in the lens for a lot of a lot of our performances without being able to see the other one by the time I got to his 10 days I realized I've never spoken to the guy really and we finally finished I was eating a tuna fish sandwich it was the last day of shooting and I said you know I was a little scared of you and he said I was scared for you and then we had a big hug and that was the end of that that that I think there was is part of why it's so incredible that performance and that that just the way that you you completely get him as well that's what's so amazing about hard as a character I guess so I mean I he I think Anthony really is one of the humblest people that I've ever met but I do agree with him on this one point that he always makes which is it really wasn't beautiful script and it did not take much in fact this draft of the screenplay was almost virtually to the word the original first draft I don't know if you know a lot about making movies and Hollywood but very often you bring other writers on there's many many many many drafts for years and years and years this one came out of the typewriter and went directly on screen and that's a testament i think to thomas Harris's novel and what a good novel that was that everybody was so inspired by that novel what do you think you connected with with Clarice and why you were so I don't driven to to be part of this and bring her to life I you know the the reasons that I told you but I also think that there was something about somebody who had been traumatized by sound in a way this idea of having been traumatized by by by being small and by by not being big enough to to help or to care for somebody who and and having been such a failure that that trauma from that is what she brings to her character and the the performance that I had done before that from the accused was somebody was really quite brash and vulgar and you know talks loud and there was something I really wanted to explore about the delicacy of somebody who doesn't you know who knows that they will never be big enough and they will never be big enough to accomplish the task that's ahead of them so they have to engage some their their most extraordinary talent which is their heart you know I heard you talk brilliantly about how much you love the camera oh yeah someone asks you about feet and you're like and you were like I love I love working with the camera and I love what you can do with it and you know in terms of with this particular film you talk about how much you have to play to the camera as opposed to with with the other actors and stuff is a it's a big difference for you is it do you know in terms of how do you you obviously get a lot out of of that kind of performance well I working when I was three years old and I started doing features when I was six and the cameras always going to be part of my life and I think the part that really seduced me as an actor was how it was made young person I was really I didn't really understand what acting was I didn't have a lot of respect for it I thought it was just saying lines that someone else wrote and but I understood things like you focus and how to load a magazine and you know I loved all of the the technical stuff that goes into making something that eventually becomes seamless so that was the part that really got me interested and I think that I knew that I wanted to be a director from the time that I was young and so that was the part that really that really got me so I love telling stories by using all of the difference it's not just the acting but all of the different vocabularies that are at your fingertips whether it be sound or props or production design music those things coming together to me is really beautiful we were talking out there when we knew people were watching the end of the film and you were talking about the last sort of section of the film which was the last day of shooting which was it was a hard I'm a little tired I'm are still tired it was a 2822 hour shoot and it was a very long shoot it was a good five and a half months shoot in the winter one of the coldest winters that we'd ever had in Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh if you know is really hit was like it's cold Pittsburgh even the stage where we were shooting in wasn't a real stage it was a Westinghouse factory that used to house 35,000 people so it was impossible to keep it warm it really it just was it was a very difficult sheet and at 22 hours people start making mistakes and it it was supposed to be a regular 12-hour day in fact the band for the wrap party was sitting there the whole time waiting and they they went to sleep there was a trailer that we all went to sleep in two trailer we when we did wrap it was six or seven o'clock in the morning even though we were supposed to wrap the day before so it was really it was it was tough and every time that I'd come through one of those doors the last shot is me coming through the doors with the gun kind of bursting through the doors and then I look around them there's another door and I burst through that door there's another door and it's all in one continuous shot but you everybody so tired they just kept forgetting to close the doors so I'd come I come through the first door to be like oh the doors open again I go back out again it's awful they were off to do they were off to go to Bimini which is in the Bahamas it's a fabulous location I wasn't invited to there is of course they only had one sunset shot to do in Bimini but they had to bring the entire crew and you know you and Load not me and load all the cargo bins with cameras and lights and all this kind of stuff and many of the crew number crew members lots of the crew members come off of that you know Jonathan Demi himself comes down the staircase and puts his arm around a lady and walks and walks down the path and that's it just one shot so everybody's dying to get on the plane to Bimini and that was why we had to do the 22 hour day because they didn't want to miss the you know the miss their shot at the plane or something you mentioned being in that show that was quite a regular thing where oh yeah it would be everyone everyone in the crew was always in every shot and some Ted please an FBI agent does you know at one point - Demi yeah he might Chris Isaak is in there oh yeah Demi is he he did come that's right Ted's Emmys in there Chris Isaak came one day to play one of the SWAT guys did you see him right you saw him yeah I was funny because he had have his head like one little curls yeah different people you know his kids the nanny the friends somebody he met at the gas station it was yeah every everyday it would be somebody I be I be walk I'd be in a scene doing something in my assistant would be behind me what are you doing here do you think all the way along since you know maybe not from the age of three but along the way you've been kind of just collecting things to that point where you decided to direct and decided to make and tell those stories from a different way it's a great film score being able to be on movie sets and and it's a real it's a it's a gift to be able to be in the position where you understand why a scene works and why it doesn't a lot of people understand y-you know they can read books about editing or they can work on movie sets and know how the lights work but it's very difficult to understand in a moment why a scene works and why it doesn't it's it's just an intangible skill and the there are very few people that get to see that close-up actors do and sometimes you know but the camera operator does so it's a it's a good jumping-off jumping-off thing to get to directing as long as you're paying attention a lot a lot of actors aren't interested I think a lot of actors aren't interested in becoming directors but I was from a young age it's a different feeling from being on set first day as an actor or as a director you mean the first day oh yeah oh my gosh my it is well there's their incomparable tasks I mean that being a director means that you are responsible for every single thing that the movie is so you're responsible for every color every sound every decision there isn't any decision that isn't yours from the beginning meaning you know whether once once you get once the the film is launched or so from casting all the way to the final prints so it's pretty stressful stressful job and you have its you have to have an opinion about everything that's going what are your favorite processes within all that as you say you're the boss of everything but what are the favorite parts so that you you relish the most ah I mean you know every part is so important every part is part of the storytelling and there isn't really any detail that I am not involved in the one part that I think is always the most satisfying is when you finally put on the score there's something about the way music finally shows up everything and makes everything seem less so it always feels like it's in pieces until you get the music onto the movie and then suddenly it becomes its own it's its own organism and it allows you allows an audience member to be in the audience and not realize where they are what point do you bring on the composer when you're making a film you know I've learned a lot of lessons about that the first the first movie I made or the first movie I directed I didn't have a composer until late I wasn't really sure what I want and then I realized I wanted jazz and it was a jazz score and that was great so I like this idea of bringing someone on late but I cut I got pressure on a on two of my movies I got a pressure to bring a composer on early and what ended up happening is I had to fire them which is not because of any fault of theirs but because you do not know who what your film is until your film is finished you just can't possibly know the process of learning your movie or movie changes just like an organism does it changes over time it walks and talks a different way and you don't a hundred percent understand what kind of music is right so now I've learned that I wait I wait I wait quite a while to bring their composure on and I think some people notice might have seen mine turn which is awesome and but from seeing silence the lumps again you go hmm but those characters are the real characters are the real characters of John Douglas who was the profile that Crawford his is based on all of those characters are the real characters of the mine hunter we got some questions oh sure you wouldn't mind funds relations from real people okay and this is from I wish people would put their actual name instead of like silly Twitter accounts ninety bro did you find it to be a natural progression from acting to directing I do think it's a natural progression I I when I was six I mean I did I worked as an actor when I was six I did a television show and one day I came on the television show and the guy who had been playing the dad was now also the director and I was just flabbergasted I couldn't believe that they would let an actor view director and I just kept watching him all day haze was I was so in awe and I said someday that's what I want to do and I feel like I knew that from an early age I didn't think that was possible I never saw another woman director and I didn't know that they would ever that there would ever be an opportunity for a woman directors so what I was told was you have to write in order to do and so I that's really was my focus was on writing and I wrote all during college and and you know was with the idea that eventually I would directly direct those movies and and then I didn't have to write because I got I was able to get script is that is that the kind of the dream for it to be the full package in terms of you know in terms of you talking about being the boss of all and you you know you were in charge of every part and then well not so writing I found that for me anyway I find I'm not a good enough writer for myself I don't I don't approve of my writing so I like better writers than me and I don't use them I really love the I love working with a writer I really like that process that back and forth process and the way my mind helps their mind so I I like my more editorial more critical more intellectual mind and how that kind of combines with writers more creative side ok this was ed could be a real name and do you have a criteria for scripts that you eat well I am really picky and it doesn't mean you know the scripts that I say no to or that I don't take on it's not because they're not good and very often they they're wonderful and in mind-blowing and they go on and they're phenomenally successful I have to be moved personally and I have to have some kind of personal connection that doesn't mean that I can't make a science fiction film about Martians but there has to be some psychological question that I'm working out and that's as true with acting as it is directing although quite different so that's a really small needle in a haystack and I wish I I sometimes feel very bad that I work more I just it has to be meaningful to me and otherwise I would rather do other things I would rather travel and there's games and ski yes I loved I listened to a great podcast that you're on oh yeah are you I can't matter what it was it you compared to skiing where you were like you know the great thing about skiing is if you don't pay attention you're just gonna die that's right and that's why it's so relaxing because you can't think about taxes or Trump or you know anything you can't because you will die and hit a tree so there's there's a there's a real relaxation for me with focus and that's always been my path even as a student I'm a very mano focused person and and that's the part that I enjoy I enjoy like doing that for eight hours I don't want to take in twenty other things at the same time this is from evil Erica oh yes not too evil please as someone who's grown up in the industry what are the difficulties you've experienced in getting jobs how has it differed through decades I don't have a lot of experience about difficulty getting jobs interestingly I guess because my Dennett II was not so much about how much I worked as a director you know the real frustration has been trying to get movies off the ground and trying to get them right I've always been able to find funding for movies but I haven't been able to get the scripts to the level that I feel like they're ready to go so that is that's a different song then you'll hear from most people most people say it's the hardest things getting money I'm really discerning or I maybe don't trust my fabulous creative abilities enough to be able to navigate a bad screenplay so I really have to get the screenplay right and that has been the greatest challenge for me and we took what money monster for a sec sure cuz I loved that film and I we go on clap properly thank you not a golf clap and and do you know what I loved was the Caston in that as well and Jack in particular that was great is just incredible such a exciting talent as well in terms of his capabilities and stuff can you talk to me a little bit about some intrigued about your casting process sometimes of how you cast and what it was about him in particular for that yeah I I really saw every actor in the world every every actor in the world in America really wanted to play that part and people thought I was crazy for casting an English guy not just an English guy but English guy that has an accent I can't even understand so thick I can so thick it's just but I think he really brought something amazing to it I think that he brings a working-class understanding of it that was difficult for a lot of actors and he really approaches movies purely emotionally he doesn't that's he doesn't claim to have another way of coming at things and that's his entire language and I actually I don't think I've ever met anybody that works as hard as that guy so yeah I I I actually even had an audition on skype which is not something I've really done before I auditioned on skype and and then cast the person off an audition on skype but he was very committed my casting process is I think you know it when you see it and maybe because I've acted for so many years I have a pretty good shorthand with actors I know that there's no way that I'm going to be able to magically transform really an actor's performance if it's not working I can't transform an actor's performance in the 20 minutes that I have on screen so I have to make sure that ahead of time that I've really thought of what this actor brings and what their what they're trying to say so I I meet with everybody personally I do all the auditions a lot of people don't these days interestingly there's a lot of there's a lot of like send me a videotape and then I'll say yes that would take although Jennifer Lawrence and the beaver put herself on tape and I saw the tape and like oh yeah that girl that's it yeah and I guess because I'm an actor for me it's very quick for me too it's it's easy for me to make that decision but then sometimes I'll agonize for example on the beaver I I'm I can't tell you how many actresses I auditioned for Jennifer Lawrence's part in the be or I mean it was just ridiculous I'm stupid because they were all wonderful and I couldn't really put my finger on what wasn't working and when Jennifer I she sent to us a tape and I saw this actress and thought oh wow well she's not at all the way the characters written but that's who I want so I rewrote the whole weary world whole thing for her to sort of tailor it to what what she brought to the character that was so much more than we had been able to find in the writing imagine it might be slightly intimidating for young actors about coming into this way I mean you you know you're it's a it's such a hard job and I have such respect for them I still am completely in awe of actors I don't know how they do it I really don't I really don't know how they do it and I'm really their biggest fan I feel like that's if there's one thing that Scorsese taught me when I was acting is that that really is what the director is he stands behind the camera and he's inside the actors faces and he's experiencing what they experienced and that's how I feel when I when I work with them I feel like I'm I'm saying those words or I'm feeling those feelings and I'm just so grateful for them that they that they deign to say yes because I I could not do that I always feel like wow I could never do that which is crazy yeah I guess I could but not not the way they're doing it or something I guess I just love their I love the the inspiration that they bring to things I just looked down at the next question and thought it was from Hardison forward but it's Hana Ford sorry hey and be funny if it was Harrison Ford and the accused was Harwin and a recent article suggested we've moved backwards since then do you think the film is still relevant today I think the film still relevant today but I would not say that we've moved backwards since then at all not at all I think we are moving forward and I think we're at a very painful an interesting place in in our consciousness whether it's about violence or whether it's about you know race or we have a portion of the population that is that is really has really become conscious and does understand empathy and does understand and our issues of our country's in the past and really does want to repair and then we have a huge section of the population that is the opposite end of that spectrum and they're existing in the same era so there really are two there are two very very separate eras and it's a very it's painful I think this transition time is painful but it is a transition and in terms of female identity and female sexual identity you know we we understand things now that my mother's generation didn't I mean you know one of the reasons why I was so compelled to do the accused was because I got so many messages from my mom and I knew how important this story was for her and I knew that she would never have the voice to tell her stories and that she would always be carrying around the shame of that and they the foundation that that self-loathing and you know the the the sexual politics of her era had had had given to her and then in some ways that I had the opportunity to be a part of just a small part of changing that and are where we are now has nothing to do I mean we have we are far beyond my mother's generation but not far enough yeah I mean there are still questions of sexual politics obviously still going on now and quite a lot of them but you seem to have come you came through that very unscathed and kind of to a point yeah protected in a way and but but I think from from what I've heard and read your mum was so much of a part of that in terms of you know her from from the way that she wanted you to be things to be meaningful and authentic that were the things that she taught you and and yes and she was also she was all those things amazing lady you know incredibly well-read had you know very deep experiences in her life I mean she raised four kids on her own that's something but she was also messed up and there were a lot of mixed messages that came out of her you know and that I'm sure that whole generation couldn't escape from so I just finished a show called black mirror and that I that I directed one of the episodes I'm sure you guys know that know that show and the episode that I directed is about mother-daughter relationships so it's a little bit of like an Ingmar Bergman movie but tense and there's technology and stuff in it and it is very much about that mixed message process you know our mothers want us to be better than us better than they were there they want us to be stronger they want to raise with women that don't have fear but then when they see these fearless women they want to break their kneecaps because they don't want them to leave them it was complicated relationship with my mom and beautiful in some ways and really a struggle and others and I feel like I'm the better for it but it was complicated how much you enjoying the work in and you needed some episodes of orange is the new black as well and you've done them in house cards some this and but mirror as well and stuff in TV is just vibrant at the minute in terms of the opportunities it gives storytellers right well that's where narrative is now is on cable and streaming and the viewing habits have changed the movie business is completely changed we knew that was coming the last ten years it's been a big overhaul and we will see movies we will continue to see movies in this way very differently so we will go to the theaters and we tend to go to the theaters mostly for for big massive kind of intravenous entertainment that we're willing to spend that money on and to be in the theater on but for the most part most people will be watching films on their home screens and as sad as that is you guys are here in a theater so you know there's a part of us that's sad because that's change and you know so much of our lives were about like all going to the movie here and the community of going to a movie theater but we do have to accept that you know things are going to be viewed in a different way now and really the really great storytelling is on a small screen equal time for this one last question there's a wonderful question from Samantha Ramsey okay she says which character was most challenging to bring to life why and what was your solution Wow I think the biggest challenge I've ever had was Nell and not maybe a movie a lot of people haven't seen I played a woman who had been raised in the woods with having with only one parents who had had a stroke at some point her life so she had her own language and she was was thought of as a wild child and I developed the screenplay as a producer from a play that we'd seen and I went through this whole process we developed this language that was you know I was quite a big feet developing language it had its own syntax at something and I got to you know about to start rehearsals and I'm like what am I gonna do and I didn't know what to do so I thought oh I guess I should do what all those other actors do like I should go too I should go to a dance thing like I should say go to a dance thing so yeah that is and I went to a dance teacher and I was like that's not it and then I went to acting I'd never been to an acting class or an acting teacher I went to an acting teacher and talked to him and there was a whole book mumbo jumbo thing and there was a whole thing and I was like no I can't do that and I read all these books I went through all these books about wild children but that's not who she was and I mean I really I did everything and then finally I realized that I just had to drink a little coffee and wait till they said action and there was something really at first I thought that was the part that was really stressful to me like what am I gonna do if I'm not prepared and I realized that all the preparation that I had done creating the screenplays and producing it and you know being involved the casting in the direction casting and all that stuff I knew everything that I needed to know and that I really just had to relax and just be and that was an amazing revelation who knew and it ended up being from something going from something that was the most torturous you know a performance anxiety decision that I'd made to something that was one of the easiest performances that I had given and it just was a part of me that I never knew I possessed I think I am somebody who's very intellectual and that's just in my DNA there's just who I am and I play I've enjoyed playing characters that have many layers of control they control themselves in many different ways and you get to see little parts of them the parts that they don't control etc but this was somebody who lived with their skin exposed and I didn't think that I had what it took to get there and I think it was probably the biggest revelation of my life that I did um we've almost one at a time sure thank you so much on your Twitter and people can see the snow on the big screen which is great that they'd be if our giving us the opportunity to see that there you are that's me with brown hair at black kimono what are we gonna get see it you know uh December December yeah and then you've just finished filming film as well I did it as an actor yes it's called Hotel Artemis I with a brand new director named drew Pierce who's English that makes him better and a wonderful taste oh that's true he's Scottish figure they actually grew up together so she knows and I'm excited to see that too and what is next after that do you do you know I don't have any plans I really want to take my son on vacations so I think that puts July and August out of the picture and you know if I make something before then that will be surprising to me please do please do the wonderful Jodie Foster [Applause] you

Channel: BFI

Views: 178,618

Rating: 4.893455 out of 5

Keywords: British Film Institute (Publisher), British, film, institute, films, movie, movies, BFI, The Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Demme, thriller, crime, filmmaking, clarice starling, feminist film

Id: ZETEx_uAq9g

Length: 36min 58sec (2218 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 16 2017