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When analysing the careers of many of Hollywood’s biggest stars, a common theme often crops up: a background in theatre. Many stars started out by attending acting classes and performing in local plays before evolving to more prestigious productions. In fact, several of the biggest movie stars in the world – such as Al Pacino and Denzel Washington – still talk about live theatre as their first love. However, treading the boards isn’t a prerequisite for movie and TV gigs, and some actors, like Jodie Foster, have no theatre experience whatsoever. Sadly, though, she admitted her avoidance of live performing is connected to a traumatic experience.
In 2024, Foster spoke with Jodie Comer for Interview magazine about the young actor’s turn in The Bikeriders, in addition to her stunning one-woman play Prima Facie. Comer received rave reviews for the play, which she said stretched her to her emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental limits, but in such a way that she was left chasing that dragon again. She then asked Foster if she wanted to do theatre – and received quite an unexpected response that tied into a dark period in the Silence of the Lambs star’s young adulthood.
“I don’t know,” Foster confessed. “I’m finally able to admit that the one bit of theatre I did when I was in college, there was so much trauma involved in it.” She explained, “The play happened in two weekends, and I did the first weekend, and in between the first weekend and the second weekend, John Hinckley shot the president.”
John Hinckley Jr was, of course, the deranged musician who attacked President Ronald Reagan in Washington, DC, on March 30th, 1981. He shot and injured Reagan, a police officer, a Secret Service agent, and White House Press Secretary James Brady, who was left wheelchair-bound and brain-damaged. When Brady died in 2014, the medical examiner ruled his cause of death as homicide, related to the gunshot wound he suffered 33 years earlier.
Hinckley Jr was famously obsessed with Foster, having watched her in 1976’s Taxi Driver. That movie’s plot famously featured Travis Bickle plotting to assassinate a presidential candidate. Hinckley began dressing like Bickle and stalking Foster, sending her letters and inundating her with nuisance calls. Ultimately, he claimed he shot Reagan to become famous, in a twisted bid to impress Foster.
When her stalker shot the president, it was a hugely confusing, harrowing time for Foster. She explained, “It was a big moment in my life. The world fell apart; there were Secret Service people everywhere, I had bodyguards, and I had to be taken to a safe house.”
Even at that age, though, Foster operated under the old adage of “the show must go on,” and she maintained her commitment to the second show. “I was like, ‘I have to do that second weekend.” So, reeling from the trauma of everything that had occurred, Foster performed the second weekend of the play. Sadly, she realises now that this was a mistake.
“I’d just turned 18,” she remembered. “There were people everywhere, cameras everywhere, and there was a guy in the front row, and I had noticed that it was the second night that he’d been there, and I decided to, the whole play, yell, ‘Fuck you, motherfucker!’”
Horrifyingly, it turned out that Foster wasn’t just acting out because she was scared – the mysterious man who came to her play two nights in a row turned out to be legitimately dangerous. “The next day, it was revealed that this particular guy had a gun, and he had brought it to the performance.” When he went on the run, Foster’s security team panicked that this guy was another stalker who meant to do Foster harm. She recalled, “I was in a class, and the bodyguard guy came and threw me onto the ground while I was in the class, which was really embarrassing, because there were only 10 people there.”
With all this in mind, is it any wonder Foster has always been wary of stepping back on stage?
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