It’s a great year to be Jodie Foster. Not only is the two-time Oscar-winning actress celebrating her 10th wedding anniversary with her wife, Alexandra Hedison, this year, but the 61-year-old has officially cemented her legacy with a hand and footprint ceremony during the TCM Classic Film Festival.
On Friday, Foster left her mark in cement in the courtyard of the iconic TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard during the 15th annual event.
“It’s just surreal to be on the Boulevard, you know? When I was kid, my mom said that if she found us on Hollywood Boulevard that we shouldn’t bother coming home ’cause that’s how dangerous it was in the ’70s and we grew up five blocks from here,” Foster tells ET’s Cassie DiLaura after the ceremony.
The Silence of the Lambs star was almost overwhelmed by the contrast between how her mother would caution her against walking the Boulevard streets and now having her hand and footprints displayed along the sidewalks.
While many celebrities opt to keep their shoes on when stepping into the wet cement, Foster decided to leave her bare footprints, which she tells ET was borne out of her childhood desire to connect with celebrities via their prints. “When I came here as a kid, I put my feet up against the cement and, I mean, putting your feet up against a high heel, like what’s that? It doesn’t link you to the person [the same] and that’s what I think is beautiful,” she explains.
Foster’s ceremony marked the 11th hand and footprint ceremony held at the event, following Peter O’Toole in 2011, Kim Novak in 2012, Jane Fonda in 2013, Jerry Lewis in 2014, Christopher Plummer in 2015, Francis Ford Coppola in 2016, Carl and Rob Reiner in 2017, Cicely Tyson in 2018, Billy Crystal in 2019 and Lily Tomlin in 2022.
Fellow Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis took the mic to introduce Foster and share her perspective on the True Detective: Night Country star’s legacy as both a close friend and a peer.
“She’s a creative force and is committed to the work she loves. With great performances from that very young age of three, to this last year at 60 as Bobby Stoll in Nyad and her brilliant work as Liz in True Detective. She is also a loving wife and dedicated mother to her two grown sons,” Curtis told the rapt audience.
She continued: “She has many well-earned shiny things recognizing her beautiful work as an artist and as a human. Jodie has an intelligence, passion, and an internal and external stride sense of purpose that makes everyone around her feel better about themselves and what they’re doing together. But these are mere glimpses of Jodie, impressions made if you will made like hands and feet pressed into the ground forever reminding us of the person, we feel we know. But since this wonderful moment is about a recognition of her life in films and television that we all know about it, I thought I’d take my time here to tell you people what you don’t know.”
Curtis waxed poetic about Foster’s love for sports, politics, and holidays, and shared a heartfelt story about how much the actress “loves parades.”
“In fact, when her wife the artist, activist, and filmmaker Alexandra Hedison graduated with her advanced degree, to celebrate Alex’s graduation, Jodie hired a marching band who showed up outside their home,” Curtis recalled. “And Jodie and all of their friends in attendance — me included — marched up and down the street with them, Jodie with a baton and a stunned Alex leading the way.”
“I could and would go on and on and on, but the cement is ready,” Curtis began, wrapping up her speech. “And so, as we are all gathered here to bear witness as she joins a very small group of artists with her hands and feet and name permanently concretized in cinema history, I want to remind us all that once in a while, just once in a while, the stars really do align in a magical way. And so, on this day, the 19th of April — this Freaky Friday if you will — there’s an amazing connect-the-dot between Jodie and me…”
“And today, April 19, 2024, is also the actual 10th anniversary of her marriage to Alex and that lets us all know that the stars have indeed aligned, the circle of creativity and community and friendship is complete,” she finished. “And so there is nothing else for me to say, except that it makes me incredibly happy to introduce you to my friend, Jodie Foster.”
Reflecting on Curtis’ speech, Foster had nothing but love for her award-winning pal.
“I love her, and she is a good talker, I have to say. She read some good speeches, I adore her,” Foster gushes to 360aproko. “She bosses us around a lot but usually I only see her, you know, in our pajamas. We don’t usually see each other all dressed up like this, so this is fun to see her all fancy.”
And when it comes to her wedding anniversary with Hedison, Foster says that she’s at the point in her life where she just wants “all the same” things in the future.
“More delicious lunches and more sunsets, the beach and going to the movie theater and eating popcorn,” the Nyad star says. ” All the things that are normal everyday life stuff, I think I’m more interested in that than anything else.”
The same could be said for her career, which Foster says has become a legacy of “the normal stuff.”
“I don’t want to be thought about in a rarified way,” Foster explains. “I think that’s what I like about my work; if you really look at it there’s a rawness to it and there’s a reality baseness to it. I never dreamed of wearing big wigs and being some kind of fantasy. I was always interested in having a real life, and maybe that’s because I did grow up in the film [world] and I didn’t get to go to strange places in America and learn about things. So it’s my way, I think, of having the experience of being a real person.”
The 15th Annual TCM Classic Film Festival takes place Thursday, April 18-Sunday, April 21, 2024.
Foster’s 1991 iconic feature, The Silence of the Lambs, will screen at the festival, with Foster providing an introduction.
