Jodie Foster's vulnerable role

Jodie Foster found her vulnerable side in Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life.

In the movie – Jodie, 62, stars as Dr. Lilian Steiner, an American psychoanalyst in Paris whose patient dies under mysterious circumstances – and for the first time ever, the actress speaks in French in a leading role, which left her feeling less confident.

She told The Hollywood Reporter: “I have a different personality because I’m not as confident. I have a much softer performance style as a French person. And it brings something to the character - that she’s filled with anxiety, that she’s not being listened to, is not being heard. And my voice is different; my voice in French is much higher than it is in English.”

And, Jodie loved working outside of her comfort zone.

She explained: “It took me a long time to find the right project. I just really wanted to make a French movie. And this script is really good for me, [it’s in] the French tradition where the goals are internal and kind of small, and yet there’s so much cinema in it. And it has momentum, the momentum that we like as Americans: narrative momentum where things happen and there are twists.

“I’m always surprised and then amazed that I can have done this for so many years - almost 60 years - and I just keep discovering. I definitely want to work in France again. It feels like such an escape from myself, you know? It’s nice.”

Jodie also enjoyed how the film crossed a number of genres from sexy romantic comedy to amateur-sleuth adventure.

She said: “It’s something we don’t allow ourselves to do in the United States, where a film has to be a thriller, or it has to be a comedy, or it has to be a small, personal film. But here [in France], the directors are king, so they can do whatever they want as long as they do it under the budget they’ve been given.”