Formative Performances: Jodie Foster in “Freaky Friday”

When I was a little kid, I wanted to be an actress. I pursued that dream for awhile and even minored in drama when I went to college. At some point, though, I realized that performing was a secondary passion of mine and writing was my main passion, so I changed focus.

Still, the performing bug is strong in me, and I have to blame part of that bug on Jodie Foster for her role in Freaky Friday.

That’s right – not The Silence of the Lambs, not The Accused. Freaky Friday.

The original version of this movie was a VHS tape that I borrowed many times from the local library. I couldn’t get enough of it. I couldn’t get enough of child actress Jodie Foster playing a grownup and playing it well.

She wasn’t the first child actress I had ever seen perform – I watched Sesame Street, after all, and I’ve written about other child performances that I really liked. But I couldn’t get over my excitement at seeing a child actress an adult. I fully believed that she was an adult woman trapped in a child’s body. This was one of the first movies I saw where the child performer was as strong as the adults, and though I didn’t realize this at the time, it was a formative performance that helped inspire my dream to become an actress.