“If I were a young actor today I would quit before I started.”
That’s what Jodie Foster says in the wake of the Kristen-Stewart-cheated-on-Robert-Pattinson scandal and the way the media has dealt with it.
Foster, who began acting at the age of 3, has written an opinion piece for The Daily Beast called ‘Jodie Foster Blasts Kristen Stewart–Robert Pattinson Break-Up Spectacle’ in which she defends her former co-star (Jodie and Kristen starred in Panic Room in 2002 when Kristen was just 11) and offered some advice from one child actor to another.
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In Jodie Foster’s era, “you could still manage to reach for a star-powered career and have the authenticity of a private life”. But the kind of private life she was able to maintain no longer exists for stars like Kristen Stewart.
Jodie writes:
Jodie Foster
If I were a young actor or actress starting my career today in the new era of social media and its sanctioned hunting season, would I survive? Would I drown myself in drugs, sex, and parties? Would I be lost?
I’ve said it before and I will say it again: if I were a young actor today I would quit before I started. If I had to grow up in this media culture, I don’t think I could survive it emotionally. I would only hope that someone who loved me, really loved me, would put their arm around me and lead me away to safety. Sarah Tobias would never have danced before her rapists in The Accused. Clarice would never have shared the awful screaming of the lambs to Dr. Lecter.
Another actress might surely have taken my place, opened her soul to create those characters, surrendered her vulnerabilities. But would she have survived the paparazzi peering into her windows, the online harassment, the public humiliations, without overdosing in a hotel room or sticking her face with needles until she became unrecognizable even to herself?
Comments
8 Comments so far
Hats off to Jodie – a fantastically written article, with more than a modicum of common sense. If only the media, and those of us who soak up all of the scandal they throw at us, were as genuine and caring as she is. To quote, “to err is human, to forgive divine”. And Jodie seems to embrace this motto – I wish the rest of the world would to.
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I wish I had Jodie Foster in my corner any time I was in a spot of bother. What a sound, lovely, commonsense piece of writing. Genuine warmth. She must be an amazing, loyal friend.
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Jamila
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Love it. I’ve loved and admired Jodie for so long now, and this was a brilliant piece.
The way people are treating Kristen Stewart is nauseating. Cheating is wrong, I’m not denying that, but she really doesn’t deserve this level of absurdly invasive judgment on her character. I’m especially frustrated by people calling her a “homewrecker” or claiming she broke up a marriage. Sorry, but I think that’s the director’s responsibility. He broke up his marriage, not Kristen.
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I’ve always admired Jodie. She seems so smart and thoughtful. And her comments were wise.
I do think this girl has been harshly treated. Its really nobody elses business except those involved. While I think having an affair with someone who is married is inexcusable, at the same time I feel for her its being played out so publically. And she is so young, she wasnt married and I doubt she was expecting the man to leave his family for her. It was probably just a case of a young woman having a fling , it snowballed and before she knew it it became public knowledge and she’s public enemy no.1.
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It’s not just the media being quick to judge, it’s Facebook, Twitter etc allowing the entire world to pass judgement with an avalanche of comments.
In the olden days a Kristen Stewart-style indiscretion may not have even made it to the public eye.
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Absolutely right. If you ask any screen fan who was the classiest, most beautiful actress who ever lived, Grace Kelly is going to be in any top three without a doubt. But it’s difficult to think of any modern celebrity who came close to her promiscuity*. In today’s world where everything is known, she probably would never even have been cast.
There’s a good story about David Niven and Prince Ranier getting drunk one night (Niven of course was a stud rather than a slut, nowhere was the double standard more alive than in post war Hollywood). “So David, tell me who gave you the best blow job ever?”, “Grace, er Grace er Gracie Fields!”
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Princess margeret was also known to be “a goer” and really who cares what people that have nothing to do with your life, except when you watch them in a movie, hear a song of theirs or see their pic in a magazine, do in their personal lives?
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