So Unfortunate: Jodie Foster announces unexpected end to career due to…

She’s acted for her entire life and starred in some truly iconic movies, but JODIE FOSTER has been living a behind-the-scenes life of late. As she steps back into the frame, she tells SARAH BAILEY how she navigated the pitfalls of childhood stardom and why she’s been flexing her muscles in Hollywood

It’s a hot Friday afternoon in June and Jodie Foster’s arrival in the fondant pink booths at the Beverly Hills Hotel (thrumming with late-lunch conversation) has gone almost completely unnoticed. This despite a conspicuous limp – you’ll remember her joking at the Oscars about being ‘I, Tonya-ed’ by Meryl Streep. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving, because I had that ski accident, then I had a blood clot,” the actress and director eye-rolls, lowering herself to sit.

But then Foster is a walking (okay, hobbling) masterclass in anonymity, dressed today in resolutely normcore mufti – khaki pants, metallic utility sandals, nylon backpack. It’s only her eyes, piercing blue, that are instantly recognizable as belonging to a two-time Academy Award winner, who sassed it up aged 13 in Bugsy Malone and went nose to nose with Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.