Fifty years later, Jodie Foster is still the most composed person in any room, and a story she shared this week proves that was true even when she was 12 years old.
Foster spoke at the Taxi Driver 50th anniversary reunion at the Tribeca Festival, reflecting on her time playing Iris alongside Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, and Paul Schrader. The night was full of nostalgia and celebration for one of cinema’s most iconic films, but it was one particular backstage memory that stopped everyone cold.
Scorsese also shared his side of the story, recalling that he knew he could trust Foster with the film’s heavy adult material when she arrived at his Manhattan office in her school uniform and discussed the upcoming shoot in a matter-of-fact way that left an impression on him. Foster, for her part, had already made more films than either of them by that point.
Jodie Foster Recalls the Moment Scorsese and De Niro Couldn’t Keep It Together
One memory Foster said remains “seared” in her mind is arriving on set and finding Scorsese and De Niro completely unable to stop giggling as they tried to explain how to unzip De Niro’s pants for a scene.
Foster described exactly how it played out: “Marty was trying to explain to me how I was supposed to pull down [De Niro’s] fly. They couldn’t stop giggling, and Bob’s like, ‘I’m gonna tell her.’ He would try to tell me what to do, and then he would start giggling.” Paramount told IGN the reason was simple: they were “nervous” about how young she was.
Foster’s response? She took matters into her own hands. “I was like, ‘Well, you just want me to, okay, fine! First I pull down the fly, then I do this and I walk over there. What’s the big deal?'”
The contrast tells you everything about why the film works. Two of Hollywood’s most intense talents were too flustered to give direction, and a 12-year-old was the one moving the scene forward.
Scorsese put it plainly: “She had an authority.” That authority is exactly what made Iris one of the most haunting performances in the history of American cinema, and why the film still holds up half a century later.
Taxi Driver celebrated its 50th anniversary at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival, where the full cast and crew reunited for a screening and panel at the OKX Theater in lower Manhattan.
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