Winona Ryder has thanked Jodie Foster for saving her career when they were young housemates.
The 44-year-old actress is eternally grateful that the ‘Money Monster’ star – who is nine years her senior – stopped her from starring in a movie that later bombed at the box office when they lived in the same building.
She told Net-A-Porter’s magazine The Edit: "In my first apartment in LA, Jodie Foster lived upstairs, and we’d do laundry together. She’s so smart. She told me to resist doing things that other people say you should do. Don’t be ‘strategic’! I was up for this movie, ‘Mobsters’, and everyone said I should do it. But Jodie said, ‘You have to feel very connected to something before you do it.’ So I turned it down. And it was a flop!"
‘Mobsters’ was released in 1991 and starred Christian Slater, Patrick Dempsey and Lara Flynn Boyle as the female lead and made a meagre $20 million in the box office.
The actress was relieved she swerved the film but admitted she forgot Jodie’s advice as she became more famous and subsequently took on jobs she wishes she hadn’t – though she wouldn’t reveal which ones.
She said: "I’d been listening to the people I was working with – ‘You should be doing this, you have to keep working or people will forget you and you won’t be relevant…’ – but my heart wasn’t in it. I should have remembered what Jodie [Foster] said! So I fully take responsibility – I didn’t know how to say no."
Meanwhile, Winona doesn’t mind getting supporting roles because she thinks they are the unsung heroes of the movie.
She said: "I know actresses have a tough time because of their age – they’re just not getting hired. I know it exists. You’re the girlfriend, then you’re the mother. But I don’t see it as a bad thing – it can be just as interesting, if not more so, than the leading-lady, ingénue phase."
To see the full interview with Winona Ryder read The EDIT at www.net-a-porter.com
Winona Ryder: Jodie Foster saved me from box office flop
