Natalie Portman Calls Jodie Foster a 'Role Model,' Says They Bonded Over 'Being Sexualized' as Young Actresses

During an appearance on the SmartLess podcast, the May December star said Foster, who she called a longtime role model, reached out to her about being sexualized in Hollywood.

"I talked to her much later, which was amazing. I did a speech at a women's march about being sexualized as a young actress, and, she reached out to me after that, and we talked and it was amazing," Portman, who similarly to Foster, got her start in the industry as a child actress, said. "She's still a role model."

Like Portman, who was just 12 when she was cast as Mathilda in Leon: The Professional, Foster was herself just a pre-teen when she played the part of teenage prostitute Iris, in the Martin Scorsese-directed, Taxi Driver.

While Portman said she wasn't harmed as a child, being sexualized at a young age not only took away from her own sexuality as she grew up, it made her feel unsafe, especially in a room full of much older, male actors.

"Being sexualized as a child, I think took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid and it made me like the way I could be safe was to be like, 'I'm conservative,' and 'I'm serious and you should respect me,' and 'I'm smart,' and 'don’t look at me that way,'" Portman said in a 2020 interview on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast.

She continued, "Whereas at that age, you do have your own sexuality and you do have your own desire, and you do want to explore things and you do want to be open. But you don't feel safe, necessarily, when there's older men that are interested, and you're like, 'No, no, no, no.'"

When asked about the all too common experience for women in entertainment, and if Portman has come to recognize a certain personality or found any red flags to clock in someone who might end up sexualizing women in Hollywood during her career in the industry, Portman told the SmartLess hosts, but added that she's put a guard up after the things she's experienced during her time in the spotlight.

"I feel like it's still surprising that it exists. But I feel like that projection of seriousness protected me in a way, because I feel like it was almost like a warning signal, like 'Oh, don't do s--t to her,'" Portman said. "Not that anyone ever like, you know, deserves it or is asking for it, but I felt like that was my unconscious way of doing it."

She did share something she considered "the biggest" sign -- talking badly about women.

"If they talk s--t about anyone, even if they're just like, 'Ugh, she's really difficult,' that's like a flag for me," she added. "Like, 'There's more to that story.'"