Academy Award winner Jodie Foster has premiered her new film, “A Private Life,” a project shot entirely in the French language. The 62-year-old actress, who studied French as a child at the Lycée Français in Los Angeles and is fluent, recently shared the steps she took to reconnect with the language for her role.
Despite her foundational knowledge, Foster confessed that her French had grown rusty from living in the United States without daily practice. To prepare, she fully immersed herself in the language ahead of production. “I went to Paris three weeks before filming and didn’t speak any English at all, just to be immersed and get used to it,” she told Page Six exclusively at the film’s premiere during the New York Film Festival on Sunday, October 5th.
While Foster has acted in French-language films before, she noted that “A Private Life” required a constant and new level of verbal engagement. In the thriller, the “Silence of the Lambs” star plays an American psychoanalyst investigating the alleged murder of a patient.
She revealed that the linguistic challenge personally affected her confidence on set, but this inadvertently served the character. Foster explained that she worried about never being at the top of her game, and this specific language barrier ultimately helped instill the necessary traits and vulnerabilities her character required for the role, blending her personal journey with her professional performance.
