Directing a new
Black Mirror film gives Jodie Foster the chance to look back at her own upbringing. The
Hollywood titan talks to Tim Adams
Last week Charlie Brooker was recalling for me the moment he learned Jodie Foster would direct an episode of Black Mirror, his inspired series of one-off dramas about the ways our gadgets are colonising the idea of “human”. Brooker had written a script for the new series in which a neurotic single mother uses technology to spy on her young daughter and keep her safe from the world. The
Netflix people suggested they tried the script out on the two-time Oscar-winning actor.
Brooker has had considerable global success with Black Mirror but still, the thought of working with Foster, “an actual icon”, made him come over, he says, “all
British and starstruck”. He turned to his co-showrunner for the series, Annabel Jones. “We were like: ‘You’re kidding, right? You are going to try Jodie bloody Foster? Yeah right, of course you are.’”