The actor-director cried the first time she saw her “Taxi Driver” wardrobe, but thankfully, her mom was there to talk her off the ledge. In fact, Foster’s mother was there every step of the way in her early career as a child actress.
“My mom was always on set with me, which is part of the law, you have an appointed guardian or your parent on set with you all the time,” she explained in a 1999 interview. “And since I grew up on sets with her, it became kind of a partnership. She was never physically there on set with me, she liked to stay in the trailer and read magazines, that was her thing. She was there to shelter me and protect me but she wasn’t there to kind of grab my career and say, ‘It’s mine.'”
The two-time Oscar winner typically tried to show as little skin as possible and dressed fairly masculine. When confronted with crop tops on a shopping trip with her mother and Morley, Foster was “completely embarrassed” by the revealing clothing and started to cry. Her mom understood her frustration and stepped in to comfort the young actress, reminding her that Iris “is only a character, it’s only a part, and you have to remember that.”
Foster was “absolutely mortified” by Iris’ costumes, she told Vulture, and that wasn’t the only struggle she faced making “Taxi Driver” before shooting even began.
“The Board of Education didn’t want to give me a work permit,” the “Black Mirror” director continued. “Every time a young actor has to do a movie, they have to get a work permit. They said no, I couldn’t have one, and we hired a lawyer and they decided to determine whether I was psychologically sane enough to play the part, and I guess I passed!”