10 Questions for Jodie Foster

By Belinda Luscombe

Jodie Foster, 43, has been in show business since she was 3 years old. She has experienced the highs of fame (including two Oscars) and the lows (John Hinckley Jr. said he attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan to impress her). She talks to TIME's Belinda Luscombe about playing a baddie in her new film, Inside Man, how she gets all the guy roles and why she's not Tom Cruise.

THAT'S AN INTERESTING WOMAN YOU PLAY IN YOUR NEW MOVIE. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE HER? Well, she's a fixer. If something goes wrong in the upper circles, she comes in and cleans up the mess or negotiates between parties. And that means that she's not judgmental. She's kind of neutral, a sort of Switzerland. And in my book that's what makes her a bad guy.

YOUR PAST FEW MOVIES HAVE BEEN COMMERCIALLY APPEALING BUT NOT ART HOUSE. HAVE YOU GIVEN UP ON ANOTHER OSCAR? [Laughs] It's not like you go out and try and drum those roles up. I'm interested in all kinds of roles. The Silence of the Lambs, for all intents and purposes, was not an Oscar-bait movie. I don't know, I just don't have rules for it. I think what interests me is being a part of the storytelling, not necessarily being the drummer with the solo.

YOU'VE BECOME THE GO-TO ACTRESS FOR BALLSY, BRAVE KIND OF WOMEN. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS? Yeah, isn't that funny? You look back on your life, and you see your patterns, and you go, Wow, now I'm here. How did that happen? But it's clear that as you mature as an actor, you find bits of you that become more and more you. And it's true that I am drawn to playing very strong women. I honestly haven't played any weak women. Ever. I'm not sure that I'd know how. I will say that I do like being a solitary hero. I think it's kind of iconographic. It's a very classical heroic male tragedy. You see it in male characters all the time.

I WAS GOING TO SAY YOU'RE KIND OF LIKE A MALE CIPHER. FLIGHTPLAN WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN FOR A GUY. AND THIS WOMAN ... Yeah, could easily have been a man. You wouldn't have had to change a word. Honestly, The Silence of the Lambs was the same. Panic Room as well. They could easily have been male characters.

IS IT YOUR DEEP VOICE? Ah, no. I think it's that here we are in 2006 and women get to play humans. We've reached that place in movie history, and it's not that I'm a pioneer, but I feel I was there at the beginning.

AS SOMEONE WHO'S FAMOUS, DO YOU THINK THAT REAL INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER PEOPLE ARE HARDER? Yeah. It's part of why you have children. That's your life: they throw up on you, and they say, I hate you, and they throw things at you. Over and over again, when I see creative talents go by the wayside, it's when they start surrounding themselves with people that just kiss their a__.

YOU'RE DEVELOPING A FILM ABOUT THE NAZI-GLORIFYING FILMMAKER LENI RIEFENSTAHL. ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT THE CONTROVERSY? It's one of the reasons to do it. She's one of the most infamous characters and yet might have been one of the greatest female filmmakers of all time.

WHY IS IT STILL SO HARD FOR FEMALE DIRECTORS? That's interesting. When women became studio heads--boy, that's interesting--it didn't change anything. The second you get in that job, you still have to sing the same song. You still try to figure out how to make Spider-Man 2 and 3 and 4.

ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR DECISIONS? I'm happy that this is where I got to. At 43, I have a real life, and I have a career that I'm proud of, and I'm not some workaholic who only feels like she's living if she's on a movie set. But another person has to be himself. I don't need to be Tom Cruise, and so I'm not Tom Cruise.

BUT TOM DOES NEED TO BE TOM? Yeah! Oh yeah, he loves it. I knew him when we were young, and there's something so adorable about him. He wants to drive a fast car! He wants to learn how to fly an airplane! He wants to have three of them! I bet you if you could pay to go to Mars, he'd do that. And I'd be like, You know what? I've TiVoed the Super Bowl, and I'm just gonna eat popcorn. I'll see ya when you get home.