Doctor and Detective

Since her breakout role in Taxi Driver, Jodie Foster has been known for delivering steely performances of impenetrable women. From the adolescent runaway turned sex worker in Martin Scorsese’s gritty New York thriller to the FBI trainee negotiating with a cannibalistic serial killer in The Silence of the Lambs, her characters are defined by a compelling recessiveness and relative social isolation. But lately, Foster has been trying to come out of her shell. “For somebody who is interested in privacy,” she told The Atlantic in 2024, “I am obsessed with being understood.”