Being a child prodigy was lonely, says Jodie Foster

Washington, Mar 13 : Actress Jodi Foster has revealed in a new interview that growing up as a child prodigy was a rather lonely experience.

And, she also opened up to Parade magazine about what she would have been if not an actress, why she's never fallen in love and where it's all going

"Being a child prodigy is inherently lonely. I was one of them. You're different from other kids. No one else can understand. There's a longing to connect, a craving to say, 'Here is the deepest part of me, the part that people don't see," New York Post quoted her, as saying.

On her long career, the two-time Academy Award winning actress said: "I've been working for 42 years. Sometimes I think, 'What the hell are you doing? What's the value of all this?' I have fantasies about the things I might have done. I wish I'd been a ski bum or maybe had a job at a Starbucks in a ski place."

The 'Accused' star claims to have never fallen in love, saying: "Oh, my life is basically from the head up. I'm definitely not proud of that. I'm very analytical."

When asked about her childhood attitude toward acting, she said: "To me, acting didn't seem like much of a profession. My mom always said, 'By the time you're 16, your career will be over. So what do you want to do then?' She was correct. Most child actors' careers end early. They're lost."

The American actress is a mother to two sons: Charles Bernard Foster, 10, and Kit Bernard Foster, 8, and on being a working mom, she said: "I'm still not sure where I'm going in my life. There are times when I don't really know what I am here for. When I had my kids, I was burnt out on the film business again and wondering if this new identity as a parent was going to be fulfilling enough. I was forced to ask these really hard questions about myself: Is being a mother everything? Are you supposed to lose yourself in the process of being a mother?"

She is not good terms with her mother, on which she said: "A parent's love for her children is unconditional. I don't think the reverse is true. In some ways, my mother's life was given meaning through me. She didn't have my opportunities. I had to take care of her, and that pretty much meant I had to wake up and go to work."

On being a child actor, she said: "People ask me if I missed anything by not having a normal childhood. The truth is, if I'd been an ambassador's daughter or grown up on a farm in Missouri, I wouldn't have had a normal childhood either. I had the only childhood I knew."

ANI