Jodie Foster Says Director Martin Scorsese and His Team Were Scared of Her on the Set of TAXI DRIVER

Director Martin Scorsese made his mark in Hollywood with his first mega-hit movie, Taxi Driver, which garnered four Oscar nominations and two Golden Globe nominations. It shockingly didn’t win any awards that year, but it was up against films like Network, Rocky, and All the President’s Men, which cumulatively swept the awards. It did put Scorsese on the map though, and kept star Robert De Niro on his trajectory after having won the Oscar two years previously for his role in The Godfather Part II. De Niro was solidified as a movie star with this part, after a few artsy films, shorts, and about ten feature films under his belt.

But these careers were still fairly short at the time, especially when stacked against the youngest Taxi Driver star, Jodie Foster, which the actress says made her slightly intimidating to the crew.

In a recent interview with W Magazine, talking about her recent Golden Globe nomination for her role in the film Nyad, Foster explained:

“When I first worked with Martin Scorsese I was probably about 10, I think. I did Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, and that was Marty's maybe his third movie. And then by the time I got to do Taxi Driver when I was 12, I had made a lot more films than they had at that point. They were definitely scared of me. They didn't know what to do with me. I don't know that I was the smart one in the room, but they definitely were intimidated somehow. Like 'What do I do with this 12-year-old?'“

By the time they reunited on Taxi Driver, it was only Scorsese’s eighth feature length film, while Foster had over 35 film and TV projects in her repertoire. She was a seasoned actor by 13, when she made Taxi Driver, and it must have been intimidating to some to have the most experienced person on set be “just a kid.”

She went on to star in over 80 roles throughout her career, like Silence of the Lambs, The Accused, Maverick, Contact, Panic Room, Hotel Artemis, and The Mauritanian to name a few. She has won two Oscars, and will next be seen in the highly anticipated fourth season of HBO’s True Detective, debuting on HBO and Max on January 14th.

Scorsese has done pretty well for himself as well, winning one Oscar, three Emmys, one Grammy, three Golden Globes, and the highly regarded Cecil B. DeMille Award.