One of the most critically acclaimed actresses of her generation, Jodie Foster earned two Academy Awards for Best Actress for her stunning performances as a rape survivor in The Accused (1988) and as Special Agent Clarice Starling in the hit thriller The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Most recently, audiences have seen Ms. Foster star in the thriller Panic Room from Columbia Pictures and in the independent coming-of-age story The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, which she also produced.

Ms. Foster made her motion picture directorial debut in 1991 with the highly acclaimed Little Man Tate, in which she also starred. In 1995, Ms. Foster directed her second film, Home for the Holidays, which she also produced, starring Holly Hunter and Anne Bancroft.

In 1992, Ms. Foster founded Egg Pictures which produced Nell (1994), earning her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, the cable television film The Baby Dance (1998) which won a Peabody Award and received four Emmy Award nominations and three Golden Globe Award nominations (including best miniseries), and Waking the Dead, starring Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly, directed by Keith Gordon, in addition to The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys.. In 1996, Egg also presented the award-winning film La Haine in the United States.

Jodie Foster began her career at age three, appearing as "The Coppertone Girl" in television commercials. She then went on to become a regular on a number of television series, including  The Courtship of Eddie's Father, My Three Sons, and Paper Moon. She made her feature debut in Napoleon and Samantha when she was eight years old.

But it was her role in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) and her powerful portrayal of a streetwise teenager in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) that won her widespread critical praise and international attention.

Ms. Foster received her first Oscar®; nomination and awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics for her role in Taxi Driver. She also became the only American actress to win two separate awards in the same year from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA): Best Supporting Actress and Best Newcomer, honoring her performances in Taxi Driver and Bugsy Malone, respectively.

Ms. Foster appeared in a total of four films in 1976, Bugsy Malone, Echoes of Summer, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, and Taxi Driver, which were all presented at the Cannes Film Festival. Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone, earned her an Italian comedy award.

In addition, Ms. Foster has appeared in such films as Tom Sawyer (1973), Disney's Freaky Friday (1977), Adrian Lyne's Foxes (1980), The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), Claude Chabrol's Le Sang des Autres (1984), for which Ms. Foster looped all of her own dialogue in French, Mary Lambert's Siesta (1987) opposite Ellen Barkin, Stealing Home (1988) and Five Corners (1988). She appeared in Woody Allen's stylized black-and-white comedy Shadows and Fog (1991), starred opposite Richard Gere in the romantic drama Sommersby (1993) and in 1994 starred opposite Mel Gibson and James Garner in the comedy Maverick. In 1997, she starred in Contact for director Robert Zemeckis. And she starred in the title role in Anna and the King for 20th Century Fox. The film, based on the famed musical The King and I, was directed by Andy Tennant and released in 1999.

Ms. Foster graduated with honors from Yale University, earning a B.A. in Literature.