Jodie Foster had not shot in a French film for over 20 years. She is back and it's an event! – Actus cinema

It is one of the most exciting French films of 2025, and it is in Cannes! Jodie Foster plays the main role, and it's an event.

Jodie Foster had not played in a French film for over 20 years (a long Sunday of engagement by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, in 2004). 20 years earlier, in 1984, she had held one of the main roles in the blood of others by Claude Chabrol.

With private life, she won the headliner of the film, as if the role had been made to measure for her. We had the opportunity to chat with Jodie Foster. Discover our interview with Jodie Foster speaking in a perfect French!

Allociné: Jodie Foster, French cinema suits you so well …

Jodie Foster: I can't wait to redo French films. It was a big challenge for me, I must say. It was not easy, but it was something that I wanted to do for a long time. I had already made small roles, but never a role as big as that.

How was a challenge, would you say?

To remember the dialogues. That, the more we age, the more difficult it is. And in addition, in a foreign language, it is difficult to learn the dialogues. But just to embody a person totally different from me, to improvise, to have a sort of spontaneous way of speaking ….

And the particularity is that you play in French, but you are American. You play a little on a kind of double culture.

I am someone who has the two cultures. I was raised in the United States, but I had a French school and spent a lot of time in Europe, like the character of Liliane Steiner, the psychoanalyst that I play in the film. And this is a very interesting thing, people who leave their country to come, who abandon everything to come and make their lives here in another place. He is someone who tries to escape from something, but also to find himself in a more authentic way in a different place.

I wanted to know how Rebecca Zlotowski you approached, because I think it's been a long time since she wanted to turn with you.

Yes, I didn't know she wanted to turn with me. I just got to know when I got back to Cannes. I think she hid it to me this obsession. But the Internet is my friend, because I saw that she said it several times that she was a little obsessed with me and that I rejected her for her first film, that she wanted me to play. I don't remember that at all.

I made a kind of Rebecca Film Festival

And there, for this time, how did it go?

I loved the script and it is especially through the scenario that I make my decisions. And afterwards, I made a kind of Rebecca film festival. I saw all these films and I loved them. And afterwards, we met because she came to Los Angeles to talk about the scenario.

So the first meeting took place in Los Angeles?

Yes, in Los Angeles. I went to buy lots of different sandwiches because I didn't know what she was going to like. I bought lots of things and we ate almost nothing. We spent eight hours together decor the scenario.

Rebecca Zlotowski is one of our greatest directors. She has a very nice personality and it had to be an incredible experience to shoot with her. What do you like about her?

I really like his humor and warmth. He is a very honest person. It can be very brutal. I love it. People who are really square, honest, they say what they think. She is a very strong, very intellectual woman and also someone very sweet and emotional. There, this film is a kind of meeting of the two.

It looks like the film was written tailor -made for you. Do you know if she wrote it for you?

Apparently, yes. I didn't know it either. It was in Cannes I knew that, but apparently she wrote it for me.

This is something that you can do in France, that we cannot make in the United States, it is to make films without gender.

It is an incredibly rich scenario, with exciting characters. And what I really like is also this mixture of quite tasty genres. It is hard to say what it is, this film, finally. It's a lot of things at the same time.

Yes, it's a lot of things. There is humor and yet, it is an investigation, a thriller, a little. But also, it's a film about family. And also, there is this moment in the middle of the very cinematographic film.

This is something that you can do in France, that we cannot make in the United States, it is to make films without gender. There, it does not exist with us. Or it is a thriller, or it is a horror film, or it is very difficult for us to finance films which are more personal, which have no gender.

It is also a film where you find yourself find this investigator character a little. It's not Clarice Sterling, but it's fun to see that it catches up with you to investigate …

Yes, she is investigating, but she doesn't do it very well. My character steals things. She steals clues.

The moment I celebrated my 60s, I wanted to make lighter films much more

And this somewhat comedy aspect there is in the film. It is a genre that suits you very well to be in a French film, but also with these touches of comedy. Is that something you like to be able to show this facet of you?

The first time I had the script, I didn't really understand that he was going to be so funny. And for me, it's a kind of revelation. It is true that the moment I celebrated my 60th birthday, I wanted to make lighter films much more. I don't know why, but that's something that happened to me. But when I was young, it had to be very serious. And there, I don't know, I'm lighter.

In Vie Privée, new film by Rebecca Zlotowski (“Les Enfants des Others”), Jodie Foster camps Lilian Steiner, a recognized psychiatrist. One day, she learns of the death of one of her patients. Troubled, Lilian persuades herself that it is an assassination, she then decides to investigate …

It is surrounded by Daniel Auteuil, Mathieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste and Luana Bajrami.

The 6th feature film by Rebecca Zlotowski

Private Vie is the 6th feature film by Rebecca Zlotowski. The filmmaker had previously achieved the children of others, who had met with a nice critical and public success (more than 400,000 admissions). Privacy will mark the reunion between Rebecca Zlotowski and Virginie Efira.

Previously, Rebecca Zlotowski produced Belle Épine (2010), Grand Central (2013), Planetarium (2016), an easy girl (2019), and the children of others (2022). We also owe him the series Les Sauvages for Canal+.