NEWSJodie Foster Felt Like a 'Failure' at 50 Years Old: 'Couldn't Compete With My Younger Self'
Actress Jodie Foster admitted she felt like a 'failure' when she turned 50 years old, explaining she couldn't 'compete' with her younger self.
Dec. 1 2025, Published 2:31 p.m. ET
Jodie Foster got candid about the growing pains that came with turning 50, revealing the milestone left her feeling like she wasn’t measuring up to the woman she used to be.
“My 50s were hard,” Foster, 63, told AARP’s Movies for Grownups in an interview published on Monday, December 1. “I felt like a failure. I kept thinking I was supposed to do something meaningful and hadn’t done it. I felt like I couldn’t compete with my younger self.”
Jodie Foster Admiitted Her '50s Were Hard'
Jodie Foster was awarded her first Oscar nomination at 12 years old.
Foster began her career in the industry at an early age, snagging her first Oscar nomination at 12 years old for the 1976 film Taxi Driver.
Although the Hotel Artemis star went on to win two Academy Awards in 1988 and 1991, Foster admitted she felt an internal shift when she turned 50, and it wasn’t until 10 years later that she was liberated.
Things Changed for Jodie Foster at 60
Jodie Foster explained that her liberation began when she 'turned 60.'
“I turned 60,” the Silence of the Lambs actress explained. “And it was like a light bulb went off in my head. Everything changed. I was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t care. I'm no longer tortured by any of this. I don’t know why I seemed to care so much.’"
- Jodie Foster Believes Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese Were 'Scared' and Intimidated by Her 12-Year-Old Self on 'Taxi Driver' Set
- Jane Fonda, 87, Declares She'll Be Doing Her 'Own Stunts' in her 90s at 2025 SAG Awards as Actress Refuses to Retire
- Demi Moore Almost Quit Acting in 2022 Before She Was Given Script for New Hit Movie 'The Substance': 'I Felt I Didn't Belong'
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Jodie Foster Returned to the Big Screens
Jodie Foster returned to film with 'A Private Life.'
Foster lives a private life with her partner, photographer-filmmaker Alexandra Hedison, whom she married in 2014. The Shadows and Fog actress returned to the big screen for the first time since 2023 in the upcoming film A Private Life, which sees Foster as an American psychoanalyst living abroad in France "whose tightly knit world begins to unravel after the sudden death of a patient," according to a synopsis.
Jodie Foster Grew Up Speaking French
Jodie Foster was nervous about her first French-speaking role.
The Nyad star, who grew up speaking French daily, dished on her nervousness over the role since it’s the first time she'll be talking in French for most of the performance.
“I’m a different person when I speak French,” she confessed. “My voice is higher. I’m not as confident. I feel like I’m going to make a mistake at any moment, so it makes me worried, anxious. I don’t feel like the grounded person that I am when I speak English, and there’s something interesting about that because it’s so different from who I am in America.”
