There is a reason why Jodie Foster has never been on Broadway . The actress told Interview magazine during a discussion with “The Bikeriders” star Jodie Comer that she has steered clear of theater acting after enduring a “traumatic” experience when she was 18. Foster, who catapulted to fame after her turn as a child prostitute in “Taxi Driver,” was at the center of a presidential assassination attempt after would-be-murderer John Hinckley publicly dedicated his act of violence to her.
The assassination attempt took place during Foster’s one and only theater acting experience. Later, an audience member brought a gun into the theater during her play, and Foster has opted to never return to the stage. “I’m finally able to admit that the one bit of theater I did when I was in college, there was so much trauma involved in it — well, just quickly, the play happened in two weekends, and I did the first weekend, and in between the first weekend and the second weekend, John Hinckley shot the president, and a few people around him, and it was a huge moment,” Foster said.
“It was a long time ago. You probably don’t even know, but he shot him in order to impress me , and he had written letters to me, so it was a big moment in my life. The world fell apart, there were Secret Service people everywhere, I had bodyguards, and I had to be taken to a safe house, and I was in the middle of these two weekends of this play, and I had the dumb idea of ‘the show must go .
