Jodie Foster has had her share of unflattering moments in the spotlight over the past few years, but I’ll say this for her: she is loyal to her friends. In the October issue of MORE, Foster talked about her relationship with Mel Gibson, whose life seems increasingly out of control. Gibson stars in Foster’s latest film, The Beaver (it never gets old), as a suburban husband and toy company CEO who deals with crippling depression by putting beaver puppet on his hand and speaking through the puppet. Foster plays his wife. When MORE talked to Foster several months before the tapes of Gibson verbally abusing his girlfriend, she praised him, saying he’s “the easiest, nicest person I’ve ever worked with … The second I met him [on the set of 1994’s Maverick], I said, ‘I will love this man for the rest of my life.” After the domestic violence allegations against Gibson came to light, Foster told MORE, “When you love a friend, you don’t abandon them when they are struggling. Of course, Mel is an undeniably gifted actor and director, and The Beaver is one of his most powerful and moving performances. But more importantly, he is and has been a true and loyal friend. I hope I can help him get through this dark moment.” Foster said that Gibson’s performance in The Beaver is one of his most powerful yet – good news for the publicists who are trying to rehabilitate his image. Cherry Jones also stars. The MORE interview also asks Foster about her relationship with her mother, Brandy, who managed her as a child actress. (Jodie was named after “Aunt Jo,” Brandy’s live-in lesbian lover.) Jodie thinks that many of her early parts, playing struggling characters, were her mother’s attempts to tell her own story through her daughter’s onscreen performances. The relationship changed when Jodie had her children. “The hardest time [my mother and I] ever had was when the kids were young. I wasn’t going to pick the name she wanted. I wasn’t gonna do it the way she wanted. And she saw it as a rejection of how she raised us.”
We’ll have to wait for the rest of the interview until next week — the October issue of MORE hits newsstands Sept. 28. For now, take a look at the cover and see if you can spot what made me giggle. Do you think Jodie Foster should publicly stand up for her friend? Any chance that The Beaver will be a success with Mel in the lead?
