If there is a word to describe the character Jodie Foster plays in her latest directorial effort, "The Beaver," it might be tenacious.
It's a word that might be applied to the star as well.
The film is the story of Walter Black, a man in the grips of an unshakable midlife depression who finds that the only way he can communicate with the world is through a beaver hand-puppet. Foster plays his wife, Meredith, who is determined to stop the disintegration of her marriage and family.
"I totally related to that," says the two-time Oscar-winning actress.
"I totally believe that tenacity of wanting to fight for someone - wanting to fight for your family."
Taking on "The Beaver" was not easy to begin with for Foster.
Screenwriter Kyle Killen has compared it to "Harvey." There are similarities to that 1950 film about a genial alcoholic with an imaginary friend that's a 6-foot rabbit, but "The Beaver" is not whimsical. It is life seen through a glass darkly. While admired, the script was on Hollywood's 2008 blacklist of the top unproduced scripts and considered almost unfilmable. Nevertheless, Foster saw it as "raw and beautiful" and wanted a chance to direct it.
"I think the blacklist itself is a whole bunch of scripts that are unproduced because nobody knows how to make them and because they are huge quirky risks. But somebody made this, and that's good," Foster says with a smile.
The result is a spare, provocative
film, which reportedly cost $20 million and boasts two up-and-coming stars in Anton Yelchin as the troubled teenage son and recent Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence as his friend. The main star of "The Beaver" is the scandal-plagued Mel Gibson, who plays the troubled Walter.Considering the swirl of controversy that has surrounded the actor and, in turn, her film, Foster seems in good spirits as we talk at a table in a Beverly Hills hotel.
"It's a big drag," she admits about having to deal with the questions, but has stood by Gibson, a longtime friend.
"The Beaver," which opens in limited release Friday, was delayed after the turmoil involving Gibson, who pleaded no contest to charges of domestic battery related to a 2010 altercation with his ex-girlfriend. The onetime superstar, whose films have grossed more than $2 billion at the box office, had already had his problems in Hollywood after an anti-Semitic rant during a drunken-driving arrest in 2006.
But Foster, who has been friends with Gibson since they starred in "Maverick" (1994), thought that the actor, who says he has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, was the right person to play Walter Black, a toy manufacturer who at times uses the bottle to numb himself as he battles his own demons.
"He brings a lot to the film, and he's a man who understands struggle. He understands that in a really complex way," says Foster about Gibson. "That's why his performance is as strong as it is."
While some may find it hard to separate the character from the actor, many early reviews of the film have praised the performance of Gibson, who voices his alter-ego beaver with a Cockney accent.
Foster says she can't take credit for the performance. "I can guide him and say, `This is what we're headed for,' but I can't create that depth of feeling, that kind of commitment. That's who he is, and he's beautiful. That's the man I love."
Gibson has done only one interview for the movie, in which he said about his friendship with Foster, "You couldn't get two people who are more diametrically opposed on everything that they think about religion and politics than what we do."
Foster laughs at that description. "I guess there are ways we're different. I can be very intellectual, and he can be very instinctual. But then he is a guy who reads volumes and volumes and volumes and knows all sorts of things - arcane stuff that no one in his right mind does .... Obviously we have different beliefs about a lot of things. He thinks that the Super Bowl was thrown," she starts laughing again, "that it was a conspiracy ... . You know, there are all sorts of things that we disagree about. I love the conversation with him. I really do. I feel lucky to have somebody who really gets me."
So when the actress talks about the "tenacity of wanting to fight for someone - wanting to fight for your family," you get the sense it goes beyond just her character.
Foster, 48, says she doesn't know if it's harder in Hollywood than other places to find a friend like Gibson. She's been in the business for 43 years, she notes almost incredulously, and most of her friends aren't actors. Throughout her career she has tried to keep a low profile, though that has been nearly impossible at times. In 1981, while attending Yale, John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate President Reagan, claiming he was trying to impress her, and over the years there has been much speculation about her private life.
But the actress credits her mother for teaching her at a young age that the film business was just her job - some parts "more absurd than the others."
"There's a side where I'm prowling outside with a gun in my hand with fake blood all over my head, and there's a side of my job which is where I'm dripping with jewels and I'm walking the red carpet and getting my picture taken. What could be more absurd ... . They are all different weird compartments of my job, but they are all my job.
"It's not my life. It's just a job," she says, adding that once she goes home, "it's not who I am."
The mother of two boys, the actress has never revealed who the father(s) are. Having a family and running a company are two of the reasons Foster lists for the gap since the last film she directed, "Home for the Holidays" (1995). Her first effort was "Little Man Tate" (1991). Since "Home," she tried twice - and came close - to making "Flora Plum," a period piece about circus performers, only to have it fall through.
But "honestly," she says about the long interval, "I think it's because I wasn't ready, and I didn't find anything that made me ready."
"`The Beaver' fits in with what I do," says Foster, who gained national attention at 13 for her performance as an underage prostitute in "Taxi Driver."
"I make movies about spiritual crises, and the process of making a movie is a way for me to figure out how to get through them," says Foster. "It's kind of life-changing.
"You know, when you're on something for two years, you obsess about it ... . You download your own history and what you believe in, and each character in some ways is shaped to be a different part of you."
The actress jokes that if she made films about "Jaws or something," then maybe she could go about filmmaking in a lighter way.
"I don't need to be the biggest director or the most famous one. I don't need to do a CGI movie. I don't need to go over $100 million at the box office. I don't need any of that," she says.
"I make personal movies. They are hard to get off the ground, and that's another reason why it takes me so long between films. But hopefully it won't again. Those days are over."
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