Jodie Foster wanted her sons to have as normal of a life as possible despite having a famous mother.
The “Silence of the Lambs” star told “The View” panel Friday that she hid her acting career from her now-adult sons when they were younger because she didn’t want it to impact how they viewed her.
“I guess I just didn’t want them to know me that way,” Foster, 61, explained. “I wanted them to know me as their mom and the person who went away to work and stuff.”
“I just didn’t want them to be confused about what I did for a living,” she continued.
Despite bringing her oldest son, Charles “Charlie” Bernard Foster, 25, to set with her when he was three, the boys spent their early years under the impression that Jodie was actually a construction worker.
“I brought him to set one day and I bought him a little plastic tool belt and stuff,” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, and this is this set and this set and this set.’ And for a really long time, he thought I was a construction worker.”
The Oscar winning actress is also mom to son Christopher “Kit” Bernard Foster, 22, whom she shares with former partner Cydney Bernard.
While it’s unclear exactly when the boys caught on to their mom’s stardom, Charlie has since followed in Jodie’s footsteps, doing theater all throughout school.
Despite her boys’ interest in the entertainment industry, the legendary actress joked that they “have no interest in watching my movies with me.”
“There’s a few films that I would never show them because I would be worried about being teased,” Jodie joked, specifically pointing towards 1995’s “Nell” in which she played a “wild child” that spent most of her upbringing in isolation.
However, she thinks they may tune in for the new season of “True Detective: Night Country” — not necessarily to support her but because they are “really into” the show.
Foster has kept most of her home life out of the public eye over the years — specifically in regards to her sons and relationship with wife Alexandra Hedison, whom she wed in 2014.
However, Charlie made a rare appearance on “The Tonight Show” earlier this week while supporting the “Nyad” star.
After Jodie took the stage, host Jimmy Fallon told her that he was “really excited” to meet the redhead, who waved as the camera cut to him in the audience.
“That’s a supportive son right there,” Fallon said while clapping. “We love you Charlie!”
Despite both her sons being in their 20s, the actress recently caught heat for calling Generation Z “really annoying” in the workplace.
“They’re like, ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10:30 a.m,’” she jokingly told the Guardian earlier this month. “Or in emails, I’ll tell them, ‘This is all grammatically incorrect, did you not check your spelling?’ And they’re like, ‘Why would I do that, isn’t that kind of limiting?’”
However, Jodie noted that she often tries “reaching out to young actresses” to offer advice so that they don’t deal with the same hardships she went though as a young star.
Unfortunately, most users online focused less on her efforts to help the generation and more on her apparent diss.
“Ah the boomers moaning about laziness and can’t stand the idea that this gen are way ahead in their attitudes towards work and giving away too much of themselves,” one user on X (formerly Twitter) wrote.
“RUDEE!!” a second person chimed, as a third added, “I agree but to be fair, aren’t the older generations to blame for raising them?”
