There are different ways of being a woman

For a long time, Jodie Foster was the most visible lesbian in Hollywood not that she really wanted to talk about it). Now, she feels liberated and is helping the younger generation follow suit.

- EMMA BROCKES

It is roughly 58 years since Jodie Foster's first acting role, and there are things she won't put up with on set.

She won't be told how to get into character. She won't tolerate what she calls 'voodoo' directing, that is, am-dram, shake-your-body-out nonsense. She won't respond to certain types of 'alpha' interference from people up the industry chain. (The only time she submits to bossy producers, she says, is when they are 'super passive-aggressive British people' - a type she just can't resist.) In work mode, and outside interactions with the press, she is conscientious, matter-of-fact, with almost no performance anxiety or self-consciousness.

'I approach a story or character in the same way I do a book report,' she says: 'I like to make it pragmatic.' The 61-year-old is charming and pleasant, with gel-spiked hair, tiny-waisted black trousers and a crisp white shirt popped at the collar. She could be a matador, or someone in high-end catering, and the sheer familiarity of her face and manner is startling. The voice and smile, the teasing laugh and intensity evoke decades of iconic roles, from Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs and Sarah Tobias in The Accused, back to her childhood roles in Taxi Driver and Bugsy Malone. She kicks off her mules to reveal red-painted toenails, and tucks her legs under her, an unstudied gesture – or a knowing one.