(NewsNation) — Jodie Foster credits her early career success in protecting her sexual abuse in Hollywood.
Foster, who’s been acting since she was three years old, had often wondered why she didn’t struggle like other younger artists in the industry.
“I’ve really had to examine that, like, how did I get saved?” she told NPR “Fresh Air” host Terry Gross on Tuesday’s episode. “There were microaggressions, of course. Anybody who’s in the workplace has had misogynist microaggressions. That’s just a part of being a woman, right?”
“But what kept me from having those bad experiences, those terrible experiences? And what I came to believe … is that I had a certain amount of power by the time I was, like, 12.”
She said by the time she received her first Oscar nomination, for supporting actress in “Taxi Driver,” Foster was a part of a group of people in Hollywood that had enough power and was “too dangerous to touch.”
“I could’ve ruined people’s careers, or I could’ve cried ‘Uncle,’ so I wasn’t on the block,” the “Nyad” actor said.
Foster starred alongside Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel in Martin Scorsese’s classic, where she portrayed a teenage sex worker.
Despite the controversy of her role, the Academy Award winner told Gross she is honored to be part of the “golden age of cinema in the ’70s.”