Jodie Foster opens up about mentoring young actors and what she finds ‘annoying’ about Gen Z

Jodie Foster is one to lend a hand to up and coming actors — but she's still keeping the next generation humble.

The 61-year-old opened up to The Guardian about helping young people navigate the entertainment industry due to her own childhood experience, having gotten her start in commercials at age 3.

“I’m compelled. Because it was hard growing up,” she said in an interview published Jan. 6.

Foster told the publication that she specifically reached out in December to nonbinary actor Bella Ramsey at the Elle magazine Women in Hollywood celebration.

“(The organizers) are very proud of themselves because they’ve got every ethnicity, and I’m like, yeah, but all the attendees are still wearing heels and eyelashes. There are other ways of being a woman, and it’s really important for people to see that. And Bella, who gave the best speech, was wearing the most perfect suit, beautifully tailored, and a middle parting and no makeup,” Foster recalled.

As a woman who identifies as gay and who grew up in the spotlight, Foster said she couldn't have worn Ramsey's statement look back in the day.

“Because we weren’t free. Because we didn’t have freedom. And hopefully that’s what the vector of authenticity that’s happening offers — the possibility of real freedom."

Foster adds that she "did the best I could for my generation."

“I was very busy understanding where I fitted in and where I wanted to be in terms of feminism,” she said. “But my lens wasn’t wide enough.”

As to what younger people attempting to rise to stardom need to hear, Foster said, “They need to learn how to relax, how to not think about it so much, how to come up with something that’s theirs. I can help them find that, which is so much more fun than being, with all the pressure behind it, the protagonist of the story.”

But she didn't let the actors of Gen Z off the hook, either.

“They’re really annoying, especially in the workplace,” she joked to the publication. “They’re like, ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10.30am.’ Or, like, in emails, I’ll tell them this is all grammatically incorrect, did you not check your spelling? And they’re like, ‘Why would I do that, isn’t that kind of limiting?’”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com