(6 of 7)
As an actress-director, she knows her subject. She could teach Hollywood to moguls; they might learn something. "This is not a business that is kind to women, but it needs them," she says. "The female pioneers have to be 10 times better than a man. Maybe someday there will be an old-girl network. But I'm not interested in alienating the audience. I believe in the system. I'm acutely conscious of the business in this town and how I organize my career. As an actor you must have self-knowledge and an understanding of your limits. I know I can't play a Chicano gang leader, but I could play Queen Victoria. I'm also a structure hound. If the choices are too great, I'm paralyzed."
She is never paralyzed; she is always prepared, whether playing a scene or carrying a film. The ferocious focus has always been there. When she was 13, she directed a short "tone poem," Hands of Time, a series of shots of hands that depict life from cradle to old age: a baby, a couple getting married, a man cocking a rifle, a man's hand on a pregnant woman's stomach, and an old man holding hands with a little kid. In one day, she had to write the treatment for it, select the cast, direct the crew, and decide on the editing order. Foster remembers the film as "lyrical, very pretty."
As director of Tate, she amassed storyboard details on each scene -- not just the camera blocking but the underlying emotions of each character. "Films are too important not to have a drawn road map," she says. "I won't wing it. When I come into a shot, I always have an idea." She has an idea too of the field-marshalry of directing a movie. "You must learn to lead, to be a benevolent king. You try to communicate your vision and monitor those who don't get it. I feel safe there. I can be vulnerable. The code is, they'll catch you if you fall down. I have camaraderie with these people. It's like going through a war together."
By all accounts, there was no war between the Tates. Foster made sure it was a happy set; everybody watched the rushes; the young boss won new acolytes, none stronger than screenwriter Frank, who had hoped to direct the movie. "There's no one in this town like her," says Frank. "She seems small and sad; you want to protect her. Then you find she's a pretty and intelligent woman who knows kick boxing. She's one of the few people who's not tongue- lashed in the business. This town is the biggest collection of dips, dopes and dunderheads. Most are illiterate; their entire vocabulary can be summed up in MTV. But Jodie's resourceful. She knows movies, but she knows more than movies. She's unpretentious -- 99% of the time she dresses in sweats. And she's maternal; she eats healthy and tells you how to eat."
What she told the actors is a collegial secret, except for her instructions to young Adam Hann-Byrd. "Adam is a very realistic kid, very aware," she says. "I wouldn't know how to direct a kid to be that way. So I'd load him up with a lot of technical things -- kids usually connect with the technical -- and then he would just relax. Or I'd say, 'Make your eyebrows like you're scared,' and that would make him a little nervous. And then I'd get what I wanted."