Jodie Foster was ‘scared’ to tackle her first French-language starring role

NEW YORK − Jodie Foster is saying bonjour to New York Film Festival.

The Oscar-winning actress, 62, stopped by the festival on Oct. 5 for a screening of “A Private Life,” a French mystery that marks a career-first for her.

Foster is fluent in French and even went to a French prep school. But “A Private Life” is the first time she has taken on the lead role in a French-language film.

“It’s something I wanted to do for a long time,” she said in a Q&A after the screening. “I’ve made a few French films, but never with this much dialogue and in a starring role. … I finally found the right role, the right script and the right director.”

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Jodie Foster attends the red carpet for “A Private Life” during the 63rd New York Film Festival on Oct. 5, 2025, in New York City.

Foster stars as a psychiatrist who comes to believe that her patient who supposedly died by suicide was actually murdered. She begins trying to piece together the mystery while working through her relationship with her ex-husband, Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil). The New York screening took place after the film previously premiered at Cannes Film Festival in May.

Despite being fluent in French for most of her life, the “Silence of the Lambs” star was anxious about taking on the part.

“I was nervous,” she shared. “I kept telling (director Rebecca Zlotowski), ‘I’m a little scared.’ So I came three weeks ahead of time just to be in the city and not talk to any American friends, and only speak to French people. I think that was helpful.”

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Jodie Foster speaks at a screening of “A Private Life” during the 63rd New York Film Festival on Oct. 5, 2025, in New York City.

Foster speaks almost entirely in French from beginning to end in the film, albeit with one or two English sentences − and curse words − thrown into the mix. “Rebecca had to put in a few little Anglicisms, a (few) little American things here and there,” she said. The festival crowd applauded for Foster after the director and Q&A moderator complimented her French in the movie.

Foster also highlighted a few key differences between working on a French and an American movie set.

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“The crews are smaller (in France), and people overlap and do lots of jobs,” she noted during the Q&A. “That’s not something we do in America. In America, even on a tiny movie, pretty much everybody has kind of a job that they do. But in the French world, no.”

In fact, Zlotowski recalled Foster being thrown off when she saw the director personally decorating the set and even handing her a coat off her back to wear in a scene. “She gave me her clothes to wear, which I was like, ‘We don’t do this in America,’ ” Foster quipped.

One other new experience for Foster: filming inside a real working elevator. “I’ve made a lot of scenes in elevators, but not real ones,” she said. “Not real, tiny little French elevators.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jodie Foster was ‘scared’ to star in French in ‘A Private Life’