Jodie Foster
The Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster is an intellectual when talking about books. She just loves literature and to read a good book.Your last movie Nim's Island is based in a children's book.Did you also do this so that you'd have a film your kids could see?
Yes, because they've already read the book and they loved it. The book had a big impact on my son—so now after he read the book he can visualize me. It was like he discovered literature in a completely different way. I couldn't get him to come to dinner because he was too busy reading the book again. It was great.
Q. Did you read the book or the script first?
A. I read the script first, and then I read the books after that. ... Nim's Island, the book, really changed my older son's life. My little one doesn't really quite read yet, but he's into it. He takes the books out and he can say the first letter and stuff, so he's on his way. I think the best way to motivate your kids to read is just to read to them. And I still read to my older one. I don't care that he can read, I still read to him. They do this thing in schools now which I love. I love it when he has his current-event projects, because we get to comb through the newspapers and go, "Isn't this a cool story? Look at this story." And we look at magazines and the story of the 2,000-pound whale that was put in a formaldehyde jar and kept for all those years, and now it's starting to corrode, but the artist is going back and he's going to re-shellac it, and it's only going to cost $1 million! There's just so many great stories that are not about the grisly headlines, and I think that's a fun way to get kids interested in reading.
Q. What books did you love when you were a kid?
A. I liked all those history books. I used to get these history books that would profile well-known people like Eleanor Roosevelt or Amelia Earhart. My mom always used to buy the women's stuff.
Q. Did you ever read in Spanish or a Spanish author?
A. My Spanish is not good enough to read a book in Spanish but I love to read Spanish authors as Garcia Marquez or Isabel Allende.
Q. You said that before that books are the best company someone can have.
A. Yes because books have always been my escape. They are a place where I go to bury my nose or play the emotional tourist in a world of my own choosing. Words are my best expressive tool. When I was growing up, books took me away from my life to a place that didn't feel lonely. They celebrated the outcasts, people who sat on the margins of society contemplating their interiors.
Q. And tour favorite book is…?
A. Franny and Zooey and The idiot . Books were my cure for a romanticized unhappiness, for the anxiety of impending adulthood. They were all mine, private islands with secret passwords only the worthy could utter. If I could choose my favorite day, my favorite moment in some perfect dreamscape, I know exactly where I would be: stretched out in bed in the afternoon, knowing that the kids are taking a nap and I've got two more chapters left of some heartbreaking novel, the kind that messes you up for a week.
Q. If you could hang out with a fictional character from a book who would it be and why?
A. Probably Harry Potter. I loved college and being with kids who were smart. Just that whole Harry Potter world, where you're in an English castle and wearing a robe in school and all the pageantry. I love that.
