Jodie Foster admits 'life could've been different' if she didn't turn down iconic movie role

Jodie Foster revealed she turned down one of the biggest roles in movie history and admits that her life could have been ‘so different’.

The 61-year-old Hollywood star has had a career spanning decades picking up her first movie role back in 1972 for the Disney flick Napoleon and Samantha.

While still a youngster, Foster starred in several high profile movies such as Taxi Driver, Bugsy Malone and Freaky Friday - and unlike many child stars, she went on to forge an impressive career as an adult and has scooped two Oscars, three BAFTAs and three Golden Globes. Oh and she’s up for a third Oscar for her recent turn in Nyad.

However, while she’s got the sort of career most actors could only dream of, Foster recently shared that she turned down one particularly iconic role.

HBO

During an appearance on The Graham Norton Show yesterday (16 February), she shared: “I got the part of Princess Leia but couldn't do it because I was already doing a Disney film.

“My life could have been so different, and I would have liked to have had the hair!”

As we all know, the role of Princess Leia went to the late, great, Carrie Fisher and it’s kind of hard to imagine anyone else playing the character.

This isn’t the first time Foster has addressed the fact she turned down the role, speaking to Jimmy Fallon earlier this year, she was asked if it was true, to which she replied: “I was, yeah. They were going for a younger Princess Leia but I had a conflict. I was doing a Disney movie and I just didn’t want to pull out because I was already under contract.”

Netflix

But it seems she has few regrets as it turns out she’s not sure she’d have done a great job.

“I don’t know how good I would have been,” Foster said.

“I might have had different hair, you know. I might have gone with a pineapple.”

Foster is currently appearing on our screens in the fourth season of True Detective where he plays no-nonsense cop Liz Danvers who teams up with fellow officer Evangeline Navarro (played by Kali Reis) to try and get to the bottom of the mysterious deaths of eight research scientists in rural Alaska.

Teasing a shock ending to the series, Foster told Norton: “I can't say much about the final episode, but it is the best, it is extraordinary. No one sees that end coming.”