Jodie Foster – The Silence of the Lambs
Foster was awarded Oscars for The Silence of the Lambs and The Accused and it is hard to separate the two in terms of quality. Both are sensational performances by an actress at the top of her game, but very hard to compare side by side. In the end, her conversations with Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter prove to be the tipping point, showcasing a peerless blend of brittle fragility, fierce frankness, guardedness and strength of will. It is hard to imagine anyone else in the role and the fact that someone as gifted as Julianne Moore struggled to capture the same essence of Clarice in Ridley Scott’s vastly inferior sequel Hannibal shows how much Foster achieved.
But it is not just with her celebrated sparring partner that Foster shines. Her meeting with the bug experts, her conversations with the odious Dr Chiltern, her groping in the dark as Buffalo Bill tries to close in, all of these showcase Foster’s remarkable versatility, vulnerability and strength. More recently, Foster not worked in front of the camera quite so often, but she continues to impress with varied and powerful performances in Contact, The Brave One, Inside Man, Elysium, Carnage, Panic Room and Flightplan.
Lest we forget, she has worked since teenage roles in Taxi Driver (where she holds her own against De Niro and Keitel) and Bugsy Malone (where she easily blew the rest of the cast out of the water) and enjoyed small screen TV success in her pre-teens as well. Although (like almost anyone) she has the odd lightweight effort (Maverick, Somersby, Anna and the King, Nim’s Island) that is something of a step down from her best work, she has never embarrassed or disgraced herself and is always thoroughly watchable. Apparently, she’s pretty good at directing too.
