One of the most respected and highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, Jodie Foster received two Oscars before she was thirty years of age. She received her first Academy Award for her part as Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and the second one for her performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Since then she has become one of Hollywood's top stars, appearing in such hits as Contact (1997), Panic Room (2002), Flightplan (2005) and Inside Man (2006).
After starting her career at age 2 in a TV commercial and appearing on television, Jodie was offered the role of Iris in the movie Taxi Driver (1976) in 1975 at age 12, after Melanie Griffith turned it down. This role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actress" category, marked a breakthrough in her career. The performance earned her an Oscar nomination, and she went on to have a very successful career in her early teens with roles in more Disney films, most notably the classics Freaky Friday (1976) and Candleshoe (1977). The last film Jodie made during this era was the coming-of-age drama Foxes (1980), before enrolling at Yale University when she was 17. Tragedy struck Jodie during her Freshman year when a mentally unstable, obsessed fan name John Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan to impress her.
Jodie graduated Yale in 1985 with a degree in literature. Her main priority was now to become a successful adult actress. After a few forgettable films, Jodie was cast as a rape victim in The Accused (1988), for which she won her first Academy Award and Golden Globe for "Best Actress." Even though she had won an Oscar, Jodie had not yet established herself as a star and fought hard for her next movie role. She starred as FBI trainee Clarice Starling, a young woman who is assigned to hunt down a serial killer in the horror film The Silence of the Lambs (1991). The film was a blockbuster hit, winning Jodie her second Academy Award for "Best Actress" and establishing her as an international star at the age of 28.
With the wealth and fame to do anything she wanted, Jodie turned to directing. She made her directorial debut with Little Man Tate (1991) followed by Home for the Holidays (1995). 1994 proved to be a huge triumph for Jodie's acting career. She played a sexy con artist in the hugely successful western spoof Maverick (1994) with Mel Gibson. She also played title role in Nell (1994) alongside Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson. For her compelling performance as a wild woman from the woods who speaks an invented language and must return to civilization, Jodie was nominated for her fourth Academy Award and won a Screen Actors Guild Award.
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