Jodie Foster has revealed that she came dangerously close to starring in one of the most iconic characters in film history.
The actress, 61, shared that she was cast in the original Star Wars series as Princess Leia, but had to turn it down because she was already playing a role in a Disney movie.
Appearing on this week’s Graham Norton Show to talk about his latest role in True Detective, he admitted his life could have been completely different if he hadn’t turned down the sci-fi role.
Carrie Fisher played the Princess in the original Stars Wars trilogy and reprized her role at The Force Awards before her death in 2016, and her final scenes aired posthumously in The Last Jedi in 2017 and The Rise Of Skywalker in 2019.
Jodie, who was joined on Graham’s couch by Olivia Colman, Lorraine Kelly, Wanda Sykes, Austin Butler, Josh Brolin, Calvin Harris and Rag ‘n’ Bone Man, was recently nominated for an Academy Award for the first time in almost 30 years.
Jodie Foster, 61, revealed that the rumors are true. She was cast in the original Star Wars series as Princess Leia, but she had to turn down the famous role because she was already playing a role in a Disney film.
Appearing on this week’s Graham Norton Show to talk about his latest role in True Detective, he admitted his life could have been completely different if he hadn’t turned down the sci-fi role (pictured, left to right, Austin Butler, Josh Brolin, Olivia Colman, Lorraine Kelly, Wanda Sykes Rag ‘n’ Bone Man and Calvin Harris)
The two-time Oscar winner, who received her last nomination in 1995 for Nell, was recognized in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in Nyad.
Now Jodie (as Liz Danvers) joins Kali Reis (as Evangeline Navarro) to form True Detective’s first all-female lead duo, as they solve the mystery of investigators who disappear within a 24-hour period.
HBO’s description says the pair “will have to face the darkness themselves and delve into the enchanted truths that lie buried beneath the eternal ice.”
Speaking about starring in the new season of TV drama True Detective, Jodie told Night Country as Detective Liz Danvers, she said: ‘She’s just horrible; everything you can hate: racist, selfish and very horny.
‘I can’t say much about the final episode, but it’s the best, it’s extraordinary. Nobody sees that end coming.
“I got the role of Princess Leia but I couldn’t do it because I was already doing a Disney movie,” she added.
‘My life could have been very different and I would have liked to have had that hair!’
The screen icon will face off on March 10 against Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer, Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple, America Ferrera, Barbie and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers.
Jodie said: ‘I got the part of Princess Leia (pictured played by Carrie Fisher) but I couldn’t do it because I was already doing a Disney film. My life could have been very different and I would have liked to have had that hair!’
Now Jodie (as Liz Danvers) joins Kali Reis (as Evangeline Navarro) to form True Detective’s first all-female lead duo, as they solve the mystery of investigators who disappear within a 24-hour period.
HBO’s description says the pair “will have to face the darkness themselves and delve into the enchanted truths that lie buried beneath the eternal ice.”
Her Nyad co-star Annette Bening, 65, earned her fourth Best Actress nomination for the film, having previously been nominated in the category for American Beauty, Being Julia and The Kids Are Alright.
She was also previously nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for The Grifter.
Nyad follows the journey of long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad as she attempts to swim 100 miles in the ocean from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida.
Annette plays Nyad, who originally gained fame when she swam 28 miles around Manhattan in 1975 at age 26 and for her 102-mile swim in 1979 at age 30 from the Bahamas to Juno Beach, Florida.
The film is based on Diana Nyad’s 2015 memoir, Find A Way. Follow the 64-year-old swimming legend as she pursues her lifelong dream of competing in a 110-mile open-ocean swim from Cuba to Florida.
Jodie plays Bonnie Stoll, her friend and coach, who, along with a sailing team, guides Nyad on her four-year journey to become the first person to complete the swim without the aid of a shark cage.
Foster won her first Oscar when she was 27 for her lead role in The Accused in 1989, winning Best Actress. At just 15 years old, she got her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Taxi Driver in 1977.
In 1992 she won again in this category for her role as rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, which also earned her co-star Anthony Hopkins the Best Actor award, along with Best Picture, Best Director. and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Days before her nomination, Jodie revealed why she didn’t tell her children she was a Hollywood star while they were growing up.
“I guess I just didn’t want to be known that way,” he said in The view in January. “I wanted to be known as his mother and the person who went to work and stuff.”
“I just didn’t want them to be confused about what I did for a living,” he added.
The Silence of the Lambs alum then hilariously recalled what her eldest son, Charles, 25, thought she did when she took him to the film set every day.
“And I said, ‘Yeah, and this is this set and this set and this set.’ And for a long time he thought I was a construction worker. He thought I did construction.’
Jodie was recently nominated for an Academy Award for the first time in almost 30 years after being recognized in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in Nyad.
Her Nyad co-star Annette Bening, 65, earned her fourth Best Actress nomination for the film that follows the journey of long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad.
With Charles and his youngest son Christopher ‘Kit’, 22, now adults, Jodie was asked if she had seen any of his films with them.
‘They have no interest in watching my films with me. “I think they’re going to watch True Detective because they like it a lot,” he said of his HBO series.
“There are some movies I would never show them because I would be worried they would make fun of me, like Nell, for example, which they have never seen because they often make fun of me for it, even though they have never seen the movie.”
Jodie shares her two children with her ex-partner, Cydney Bernard. Foster is her biological mother, the identity of the biological father has not been made public.
After their separation in 2008, the actress married Alexandra Hedison in 2014.
The Graham Norton Show airs on Friday at 10.40pm on BBC One and iPlayer.