Jodie Foster says she’s never felt more at ease than in her 60s.
In an interview with AARP published on Monday, the actor spoke about her career and the hurdles she faced in her 50s.
“My 50s were hard,” Foster, now 63, told AARP. “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 live up to my own potential — like I couldn’t compete with my younger self.”
Foster began her career as a child actor and landed her breakout role in Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” at the age of 12, earning her first Oscar nomination. She went on to win two Academy Awards before turning 30, for “The Accused” and “The Silence of the Lambs.”
In her 50s, Foster expanded her work behind the camera, directing several episodes of “House of Cards,” “Orange Is the New Black,” and “Black Mirror.” She also won a Golden Globe for her role in the 2021 film “The Mauritanian.”
Despite feeling like she couldn’t measure up to her younger self, Foster said her perspective shifted when she entered her next decade.
“I turned 60,” Foster said, “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.'”
Speaking to actor Greta Lee for Interview magazine in 2023, Foster said she experienced similar shifts on the day she turned 30 and on the day she turned 60.
“I was sort of like, ‘Am I ever going to do anything meaningful again? Is this all there is?’ And there’s that awkward phase where everybody who’s in their late forties or fifties is very busy getting all plumped and shooting shit into their face. I didn’t want that life, but I also knew that I couldn’t compete with my old self,” Foster said.
When she turned 60, the actor said she started thinking about work with a “different attitude” and took the pressure off herself.
“About really enjoying supporting other people and saying to myself, ‘This is not my time. I had my time. This is their time, and I get to participate in it by giving them whatever wisdom I have,'” Foster said.
Foster isn’t the only female celebrity who has spoken about growing older.
In early November, Michelle Obama said that being in her 60s has made her all the more “mindful” of how she spends her time.
“If I’m lucky, I live to 90 and that’s 30 good summers,” she said.
During an appearance on “The Look” podcast in mid-November, Jane Fonda said turning 60 helped her realize she was afraid of dying with regrets.
“That was an important realization for me, because if you don’t want to die with regrets, then you have to live the last part of your life in such a way that there won’t be any regrets,” Fonda said,
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