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'Hotel Artemis' cast opens up about working with Jodie Foster
Los Angeles — After not having seen her on the big screen since the 2013 sci-fi action movie “Elysium,” we were excited to chat once again with award-winning actress-director Jodie Foster in the action crime thriller and directorial debut of Drew Pearce, “Hotel Artemis.”
The 55-year-old Jodie portrays nurse Jean Thomas who runs a secret hospital for criminals in Los Angeles called Hotel Artemis. Jodie talked to us about her character, aging in Hollywood, her children and how she stays grounded.
We also spoke to her cast mates: 36-year-old Algerian actress Sofia Boutella (who portrays Nice) and “This Is Us” Emmy winner Sterling K. Brown (who plays Waikiki) --- and they talked to us about working with Jodie, among other things.
Below are excerpts of our chats with them in a Beverly Hills hotel:
Jodie Foster
On how she got into her character that is a departure from anything we have seen her in
I know. It’s fun, isn’t it? The thing I love about the movie is how original it is. I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of seeing the same old movie over and over again in the big mainstream franchise films. There’s something so beautiful about the combination of this almost nostalgic, retro, vintage Wong Kar-Wai universe mixed with this science-fiction horror kick ass young film with a lot of energy.
I love that, and I love how director Drew Pearce is able to balance that. The character, that is why I wanted to do it and I found the script mysteriously and called them before they even released it. That’s sometimes how it works. I am so picky, that it takes me years to find something that I am really interested in. Then when I do, I know that’s something I want to do immediately.
I had to fight a little bit for that transformation, and to have it really feel like a transformation and not feel like a character I had played before and to have that change in physicality and honor the life that she lived, which is drinking and drugs and losing a child and being stuck in a weird, gilded prison for the last 20 years and never gone outside. Who knows what she is eating, fast food tacos, who knows? And to just feel the hard knocks of that life and the rawness of what that life has left.
On her transformation onscreen as the “old Jodie”
I would love to lie and say that the prosthetics took hours and hours and hours, but of course they didn’t. I have the most amazing make-up artist Lois Burwell, an award winning, extraordinary make-up artist who really hand painted every element of that. It’s the whole picture right, so it’s the walk, it’s the fat pad, it’s the yellow teeth and it’s the gray wig. The whole thing contributes to creating a brand-new character who I think nobody has seen before.
I love that. I loved the reaction of people and I love the idea of surprising them. I want to go as far as possible in that direction without it feeling like a gimmick. I didn’t want people to feel distracted by it, that kind of awful, old age make-up, where everybody is like looking at the seams. I didn’t want that to happen.
On aging in Hollywood and getting older in real life
It’s a real interesting topic for all of us who are over 40. I really wanted a transformation and I really wanted a character who was totally different from who I was. I am very excited about acting as I get older. There is a richness and a rawness to a face that has seen a lot of tragedy and comedy. So, I love that about her and I embrace her. I don’t have an issue with that and I am not a particularly vain person.
I didn’t make my career as an actor on my looks. I just wasn’t that person. I wasn’t the ingénue and I wasn’t the girlfriend. I was always an actor first. So to me, it’s not as big a leap as it might be for other actresses. It is interesting getting older. It’s curiosity, like wow, my skin is getting different and I can’t do that. I had such a rich, full life, and it doesn’t preoccupy me.
On the pressure of looking young and glamorous
I feel no pressure about that. It’s just not my personality, and maybe it never was my personality. I take my job very seriously and I love my job. But it’s my job and it’s not me. That is a very difficult distinction as an actor, because so much of what you do is judged by your physicality. To be a well-adjusted person, you have to come to terms with that psychologically. That is a lifetime of coming to terms with that, saying I will not be an object of your days and I will not conform to your ideas of what beauty is, and to be a happier, healthier person.
But it’s just not my personality. I don’t like to shop, and I am not interested in that stuff. I sometimes wish I was. I have to hire other people who are interested in it because I really am not. Those weren’t the characters who I was interested in playing. I was always interested in playing characters who were searching for meaning and living through difficult things.
On her kids
They are older now right, so my older son is 20 and the little one is 16 and a half. They don’t have any issues with me honestly. I continually complain about putting things away in the house, like the towel on the floor. I just feel like I am going to be doing that for the rest of my life. I am so tired of hearing my own voice about all of that.
On how she remains down-to-earth
Having children always changes your life. Even last night, there was a premiere of the movie and both my boys came and they brought two friends. Then, I got home and I had a whole day of junkets and with my knee bad the whole day. I was like oh man, I am really in pain. I was on a machine for my leg, and then at midnight, a whole bunch of boys came. I was like, you are starting the evening tonight, this is when you are starting the evening, at midnight?
They are in the room raiding the pantry, eating like seaweed and Orangina and all sort of crazy things, and whipped cream. There were empty whipped cream bottles when I woke up in the morning. They got out things like flutes, flutes that you have as a child and these are 19, 20-year-old boys playing flutes at three in the morning. I am hearing flutes and going goddammit, be quiet! That does keep you down to earth, doesn’t it?
Sofia Boutella
On working with Jodie
She was so cute and adorable I just wanted to hug her all the time. You know I was really intimidated at first because she’s someone who I grew up admiring. But also when I was very little, like about maybe 10 or 11 years old, I remember my mother watching the news and Jodie was on French news television. She was speaking a spotless French without any accent and my mom telling me she was actually not French.
I remember being impressed because nobody speaks French without an accent coming from other countries. Then following her work, I always love her in “The Accused,” one of the works of hers that I love the most. She’s incredible in that film. She’s wildly intelligent and I just felt very lucky to be in this movie with her.
She’s very selfless in the sense that she’s really generous. She gives space to everybody including the crew and other actors. Then when you see on the big screen all the work that she does, it’s incredible. In “Hotel Artemis,” she breaks my heart. Those moments that she has when she’s speaking with the cop, with Jenny Slate’s character, and you see her face changing completely when she sees a familiar face when she’s with patients, I think that’s incredible work.
On growing up in an artistic family
I play the ukulele. When I was little, I used to play the piano but then as any adolescent I rebelled against my parents and thought, I’m just going to dance. I grew up in a very creative and artistic family.
I remember when I was little I used to, if I learned something in school whether it was a number, a letter or writing anything I would take my crayons at home and try and do it on the wall and do it repeatedly on every surface I could possibly do it on. My mom had enough. So she gave me one wall and she told me this is your wall. I would draw on this wall.
Unfortunately, we don’t have this home anymore. At the time, I don’t know how it was for you but my parents didn’t take many photos so I don’t have any evidence of it but I remember it. I feel very lucky because they always gave me that opportunity. They always gave me paints or gave me instruments or gave me an opportunity to have a voice other than the one that I emanate from my own mouth to express myself in any way, shape or form. I feel lucky that way. My mom is an architect who paints all the time. My uncle is a musician. My father is a singer and my brother is an actor as well.
Sterling K. Brown
On his first reaction when he saw “the old Jodie” on set and working with her
The first time I saw Jodie in make-up was crazy because I said to Drew, how old is Jodie? We had rehearsals first and we had a really good time at the rehearsal. I was like yeah, it's Jodie Foster and then I saw her on set and I was like ooh what did they do? What happened? Then I realized that she is in make-up. I was like oh, snap, that's good. This woman is transforming like she does in everything that she always does.
What I loved about working with her in particular was just how open and accessible she was because I had the preconceived notion that she would be distant, unavailable and nothing could have been further from the truth. I'm a fairly inquisitive person and I like to ask questions. She would answer anything that I asked her whether it was about just life and navigating social media now versus like not having it in existence when she began this career in the seventies. It was such an interesting thing for me living in this environment right now and coming into prominence with social media being so prevalent and her being like I don't know how I would have begun my career if people had to have that level of accessibility to me 24/7.
She's like I probably would have done something else, right? So it's just amazing to learn from her and then just to watch her process because until you work with someone you deify them. You elevate them and she needs to be elevated because she's amazing. But then you look into that person's eyes and you see them being present and communicating the truth of that character and you're like okay, I can do that. Now we get a chance to play a scene together and it's a joy. I pinch myself constantly with the people who I get to work with and Jodie is at the top of the heap. — LA, GMA News
