guest_jodie_foster: Wow.. .that's a big one -- let's see... no one has ever asked me that.

guest_jodie_foster: My mom was very instrumental in my career, mostly because she protected me from the things I didn't need to know, and introduced me to the things I did need to know.

guest_jodie_foster: So if anybody was a positive step, it was her.

guest_jodie_foster: I can't say there were actresses I looked to when I was young, I think mostly because I didn't know I wanted to be one until I was 25 or 26.

raspberryberet_18 asks: Has being a new mother affected your acting career and other decisions you make?

guest_jodie_foster: I think anything you do in your life that's a life-change affects who you are as an actor.

guest_jodie_foster: I've always loved children; its something I've always wanted to do, so I don't think it changed dramatically.

guest_jodie_foster: I make movies about what I care about, who I love, and what I know.

guest_jodie_foster: In the last 10 years, my films have all been about family, and the kinds of relationships we have and what we do to each other to impact each other.

guest_jodie_foster: I think all those things go together.

raspberryberet_18 asks: What was it about "The Baby Dance" that appealed to you?

guest_jodie_foster: Initially, the play which is beautiful... incredibly well observed characters, I loved the voices of those characters and wanted to see them on the screen.

guest_jodie_foster: What's wonderful is that there are no clear cut winners or loser, and the truth is in the detail and everyone's point of view matters.

guest_jodie_foster: That's something you don't necessarily often in mainstream movies, so I was attracted by that.

guest_jodie_foster: But also, I wanted to make a movie with Jane, and felt she had so much to say about this with such a distinctive point of view.

guest_jane_anderson: What attracted me to the material in the first place, and I wrote the play in 1990, and that was a time when there was few people doing open adoptions.

guest_jane_anderson: A good friend came back from Oklahoma to witness the birth of her adopted child by another woman, and at that time, it was so unique.

guest_jane_anderson: It seemed like such an emotional risky thing to go, that I felt compelled to write a play about it.

guest_jane_anderson: My issues then were about class in America, and how the poor are often compelled to sell their kids in order to survive.

guest_jane_anderson: 10 years later, I adopted my own child, and the movie became something different for me.

clerk999 asks: you were an accomplished child actor who evolved in to a successful adult actor. How did you manage that when so many kid actors hit the acting skids after puberty?

guest_jodie_foster: I think a lot of it is luck; I think I was very lucky to have been able to get important roles in movies that were more than just teen films.

guest_jodie_foster: To have gotten out of television at the right time for example.

guest_jodie_foster: The other side of that is my mom, who once again, was a really amazing lady, and still is.

guest_jodie_foster: She had all the right ideas for me, about what my career should be, and wanted me to be respected and wanted me to be able to look back at my life and be proud of what I'd done, and not ashamed of it.

guest_jodie_foster: So that pointed her in the direction of choosing the material for me, that was more significant and deeper in focus.

guest_jodie_foster: That helped, that the work was significant, and then I must have been born with a weird adaptation gene; I think a lot of kids take the information they get, the pressure, stress, temptation, various vanities that surround you, and they use it like a crowbar

guest_jodie_foster: And they hit themselves over the head.

guest_jodie_foster: For some reason, I found them all to be building block tools; the same information helped me to be a more grounded and deeper person instead of the opposite, but I don't really know why.

corey_UF asks: What role was the most challenging for you?

guest_jodie_foster: I think Nell was the most challenging movie I'll ever make; the most challenging character because I developed the screenplay. along with the writer, developed the language, came up with backstory and reasons why that language developed the way it did.

guest_jodie_foster: and then I had to make it true without any research material or anything to draw from in real life.

guest_jodie_foster: She's the most opposite from me in any character I've ever played, and also the challenge of playing it... the emotions were on the outside, entirely vulnerable and lives in an unemotionally unsafe world.

guest_jodie_foster: That was a great challenge.

corey_UF asks: How do you choose your roles?

guest_jodie_foster: It depends; the two things that matter the most for me is script and director.

guest_jodie_foster: The character comes much later on that list; the first thing I look for is a script that talks about issues that concern me, that fascinates me, and the second thing is the director.

guest_jodie_foster: Whether the director's vision is appropriate for the material.

clerk999 asks: This seems to be a female driven movie, what's it like working with a majority of women both in front of and behind the camera?

guest_jane_anderson: The estrogen question!

guest_jane_anderson: I'll say about the onset producers; they were marvelous because they created a great calm on the set.

guest_jane_anderson: There was no need to prove anything on the set; the only thing that we were concerned about was the work.

guest_jane_anderson: That's not to say that male producers, male directors, male artists can't have the same agenda, but we didn't have to butt egos.

guest_jane_anderson: I like a good mix.

guest_jodie_foster: Usually when you have "women driven films." what that usually means is a much more evenly mixed film; it's a much more diverse group.

guest_jane_anderson: Thank you Jodie, for elucidating that.

guest_jodie_foster: Woman-driven means a woman gets to actually direct it.

Kane_ca asks: What if anything from your academic past have you used in your vocation?

guest_jodie_foster: Like all of college students out there, I can't remember a single thing I've learned, and yet, I think its probably the single most impactful moment in my life.

guest_jodie_foster: Just life anything that happens between 16-22, becomes this deep experience that is life changing.

guest_jodie_foster: I think it was the people I met and the experiences I had that didn't decide but confirmed my character.

guest_jodie_foster: A good education, and I don't mean a university education, but one where you're paying attention to what's happening to you...

guest_jodie_foster: is that the process is about deepening the experience and understanding the experience at the same time you're living it.

guest_jodie_foster: Nothing is more important for an artist.

guest_jodie_foster: That sounded really complicated and vague -- I think all I meant was that you can analyze the experience the same time you're living it.

guest_jodie_foster: You can learn that by picking grapes in Bulovia, and you can learn it by being in a university.

guest_jodie_foster: Those years between 17-22 is the time to do it.

rayzor6 asks: How do you critique your own acting ability?

guest_jodie_foster: I'm pretty hard on myself, because I'm so used to looking at my face, and I think I'm real strict. I'm used to my bad habits, so I'm pretty hard on myself.

guest_jodie_foster: I think I have to try to give myself more of a break; I work on trying to give myself on more of a break, and not be so much of a perfectionist.

guest_jane_anderson: Jodie doesn't think she's a very good actress.

guest_jane_anderson: So that's how hard she is on herself.

Kane_ca asks: Also, I just finished reading Hannibal and was taken aback by the ending - I can understand your reluctance! I'm wondering, were you worried about Clarice or more about 'Jodie' when you decided to say 'no thanks' :) Again, many thanks for your response :)

guest_jodie_foster: The reason I said no was because I have a commitment to direct my film at the exact same time Hannibal was going.

guest_jodie_foster: Both projects were in conflict.

guest_jodie_foster: So it wasn't anything about the book or script.

dellis_78741 asks: What other projects are up and coming (besides PLUM and Riefenstahl)?

guest_jodie_foster: Those were the two ones on my list right now, that I'm headed off to o.

guest_jodie_foster: There's also a film that's starting to shoot very soon, called THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTARBOYS.

guest_jodie_foster: I have a small part in that, and I play a nun in that.

guest_jane_anderson: A piece of trivia, for you fans out there -- there is a nun in the hospital who walks in and tells the two men to stop fighting...

guest_jane_anderson: That is actually Jodie Foster's voice that we dubbed over the picture!

guest_jodie_foster: Hopefully the actress won't call.

Flixfan asks: What are your view(s) on how H-wood treats women directors

guest_jane_anderson: Having not been a director for not very long, and more of a writer, my view of being a woman in the business is not to think about being a woman in the business.

guest_jane_anderson: My belief is that if your work has integrity and originality, you will have a career.

guest_jane_anderson: I'm probably paid less than most male directors, but I'm still just creating a career for myself.

guest_jane_anderson: I don't think that something the artist can afford to think about, because in the end, its about the work.

guest_jodie_foster: I agree with that -- you can't whine about it. The only ammunition that you have is to be the best director with the most original ideas, and that can't be denied.

guest_jodie_foster: You have o make yourself an offer you can't refuse.

guest_jodie_foster: That being said, I am the luckiest girl in Hollywood, because I had these wonderful producers that had a long experience with me as an actress...

guest_jodie_foster: so gave me that the kind of opportunity that many women don't get.

guest_jodie_foster: I got my first shot from these wonderful, gray-haired paternal characters who believed in me the way they believed in their daughters, because they had worked with me for a long 6time, and new my habits and that I was responsible.

guest_jodie_foster: Most women don't get to have that first experience in order for the authority figures in the business to give them a chance to be a leader.

guest_jodie_foster: Jane started out as a writer, and on this film, wrote a wonderful script and that's why we wanted her to direct it.

guest_jodie_foster: Both of us come from the position of having something to offer...

guest_jane_anderson: The goods...

guest_jodie_foster: That's an added attraction, when you're talking about a newcomer director.

MarjoJimbo asks: Is it personally rewarding? Do you ever tire of the fame?

guest_jane_anderson: Oh yes, I tire of the fame all the time

guest_jane_anderson: :)

guest_jane_anderson: I am the luckiest girl in Hollywood, not Jodie.

guest_jane_anderson: I think writing and directing and making movies is the best job in the whole world, and whenever I see someone on a movie set complaining, I want to kick their butts.

guest_jane_anderson: Because they can be working in a tuna fish factory instead of making movies.

guest_jane_anderson: Its a big playground, and very hard work, and a lot of pressure, but its...

guest_jane_anderson: Here's a quote from my next character -- "pressure is a privilege."

guest_jane_anderson: That's how I feel about it.

guest_jodie_foster: Yeah... I can't say that I don't have my moments of ambivalence about the movie business.

guest_jodie_foster: I try not to talk about that, and keep it to myself, because I shouldn't have those moments.;

guest_jodie_foster: But very often, when I'm directing a movie or producing one, and see what actors go through, I ask myself "how can anyone have the strength to do that?"

guest_jodie_foster: What actors do is really hard, and its extremely emotionally draining.

guest_jodie_foster: Its rewarding, but it takes so much out of you.

guest_jodie_foster: Sometimes I feel ambivalent, because at the end of a film, I feel like a vacuum cleaner that's been completely sucked out.

guest_jane_anderson: When Jodie was giving me advice on my first day, she told me it didn't matter how exhausted I'd be at the end of the day, because the actors would be 10x more drained.

guest_jane_anderson: She taught me to have enormous compassion for the actor on the set, because one of the jobs of the directors is to protect the actor on the set.

guest_jodie_foster: There is some good things about it; I try to look on the bright side.

guest_jodie_foster: That's the respect you feel from people, to know your films have moved them, and your characters have moved them, and they feel that they really know you, and you have an intimate and positive uplifting experience.

guest_jodie_foster: That's great.

guest_jodie_foster: The fame, when I get the by-product of it... there's not that much good about it.

guest_jodie_foster: I'm not sure I want to go down the list of things...

guest_jane_anderson: You don't have to stand in line at Disneyland!

guest_jodie_foster: I couldn't not stand in line at Disneyland.

guest_jodie_foster: here's the one thing to be wary of about the fame element.

guest_jodie_foster: It takes a lot of energy to have a true experience when you're a famous person, because people don't have an immediate human reaction to you.

guest_jodie_foster: They react to you with lots of baggage.

guest_jodie_foster: If you're an actor, which you love about it, is walking into someone's home and walking into their life, and feel like you're having a genuine human experience.

guest_jodie_foster: That becomes rarer and rarer the more famous you are.

guest_jodie_foster: You have to work at having a real life, picking up your laundry and going to the post office, and doing all the things that are part of the experience of being a human, rather than cutting yourself up.

babyface_bw asks: What made you decided that you wanted to be an actress?

guest_jodie_foster: When I was young, I didn't think I'd be an actor when I grew up; my mom wanted to prepare me for the fairly common experience of turning 17 or 18, and no longer having a career.

guest_jodie_foster: She kept saying things like "what law school are you going to." and "aren't you interested n heart surgery." to try and spark my interest in something else.

guest_jodie_foster: I continued acting because it was the only thing I'd ever done, and was a part of my life, and it wasn't until I was 25 or 26 when I realized I wanted to be an actor.

guest_jodie_foster: Then again, I have moments of ambivalence about it every 20 minutes.

BigStar_Host: What do you think you'd be doing if you weren't acting?

guest_jodie_foster: I think probably I would have done something that was more about my head, and less about my heart.

guest_jodie_foster: That would have been a shame; its a great privilege and luxury to do a job that exercises your heart and emotions.

guest_jodie_foster: Right now, if I was to come up with another job, I'd love to do something that had to do with teaching, or do a repetitive task job, where you do the same thing over and over, but do it real well.

guest_jodie_foster: Or like a tuna-fish factory.

jonbryce_99 asks: Jodie, do you have any advice you can give to young filmmakers?

guest_jane_anderson: Always, always, always stay true to your personal vision.

guest_jane_anderson: I meet a lot of young writers, who ask me what they should be writing to please the marketplace, and therefore have a successful career.

guest_jane_anderson: And I tell them, that they should write from the heart, and write what interests you.

guest_jane_anderson: The other secret is to be ever-curious.

guest_jane_anderson: To always ... when you choose a subject to write about or direct, to do your research, and never be lazy about digging deeper and deeper to the next level.

guest_jodie_foster: That totally sums it up for me.

guest_jodie_foster: I don't know what I'd add to that, except to be open... to the experiences at it happens.

guest_jodie_foster: Very often with first time directors, they figure out the whole movie in their hotel room, come to their first day of shooting, and think that's how its going to go.

guest_jodie_foster: You're always collaborating with the elements, technicians, other people, things you can't control...

guest_jodie_foster: That's the beauty of making movies; that you don't make them in your head in your hotel room 3 in the morning.

guest_jane_anderson: Flexibility.

guest_jane_anderson: Absolutely.

guest_jane_anderson: I've found that everything that goes wrong on a set, is potentially something that'll make your movie better.

BigStar_Host: How does it feel to be such a positive role model for young women across the world?

guest_jodie_foster: I don't ever think of myself that way, and I don't make decisions wondering how people will react to them, or whether they'll be popular.

guest_jodie_foster: I do always have a little bird in the back of my head, that says "will this help make the world better or worse?"

guest_jodie_foster: I ask myself that question ten thousand times a day, when I make a film.

guest_jodie_foster: Does this help or does it hurt?

guest_jodie_foster: That doesn't mean that I don't take on their dramas or dark subjects, or talk about complicated characters who aren't just black or white, but the grey.

guest_jodie_foster: but I always keep in the back of my mind, will this have some kind of social purpose or connection with the world?

guest_jodie_foster: Otherwise, I'd rather just stay home, and go to the gym.

nrebeccab asks: What movie made the biggest impact on your life?

guest_jodie_foster: I love the French films in the 60s and 70s, like Breathless, a Man and a Woman... and I'm not sure, because some of that might be because I spoke French, but also it was a new way of looking at things that was very much more about who I was and where I was coming from.

guest_jodie_foster: In terms of moments that had made most of an impact, I remember watching the Deerhunter, and the scene between Walken and De Nero, and they're forced to play Russian Roullette together.

guest_jodie_foster: I remember it succinctly, and what seat I was sitting in.

guest_jodie_foster: There was something about this idea of a moment in your life shared between two people, and it changes them forever, and only the two of them will ever understand each other.

guest_jodie_foster: Its a scene in every single one of my movies.

guest_jane_anderson: Joan Ford's Grapes of Wrath.

guest_jane_anderson: That movie combined everything I loved about filmmaking, which is an intimate study of humanity combined with gorgeous visual.

guest_jane_anderson: I'm sure he studied Walker Evans and the depression-era photographers; there's a scene where the family has just arrived in California, and are driving through the worker's camps...

guest_jane_anderson: And I actually studied that for the Baby's Dance.

guest_jane_anderson: Its the point of view of them coming in, with children and rags, and destitute people... and they're arriving in this hell.

guest_jane_anderson: And I did this same kind of shot with Stockard Channing first walking into the trailer court, and she's about to meet the mother of her potential baby.

silent_bob45_2000 asks: Jodi: who is the person you would like to work with in the future

guest_jane_anderson: I'd like tow work with Jodie again.

guest_jodie_foster: I'd like to work with Jane again.

guest_jodie_foster: I'd like to work with Merryl Streep.

guest_jane_anderson: No, I want to work with Merryl Streep!

guest_jodie_foster: I'm hoping -- for me, there isn't any other actor for that matter in the last 20 years, that's really brought to the table that mysterious transcendent quality that she has, that's more than just acting.

guest_jane_anderson: And Tony Hopkins -- I like the intelligence behind his eyes.

guest_jane_anderson: And Lily Taylor.

BigStar_Host: I want to thank you two for joining us tonight - we know you're busy and we appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedules!

guest_jodie_foster: Watch the Baby Dance.

guest_jane_anderson: Follow your heart.

guest_jane_anderson: If you can do both at the same time, good for you.