For child stars, life can be a complex journey fraught with insecurity, disappointment and resentment. Very few blossom into adults completely at peace with themselves and the world, and those who do tend to retreat from the limelight as soon as they are able to assert their own will.

So how is it that revered actor, producer and director Jodie Foster, who first felt the heat of the spotlights as a toddler, has not only gone on to have one of the most impressive acting careers of a generation, but also proved to be a compelling director – and with a smile on her face, too?

“Well, the answer to that is I’m lucky, incredibly so” she begins, before referencing her directorial duties, most recently in an episode of the Netflix sci-fi series Black Mirror. “And I don’t understand 100 per cent why I’m so lucky,” she continues, “because it’s ridiculous how few female filmmakers there are in the mainstream arena.

“There are a lot more in the indie world, a lot more in television, and it’s starting to change a little bit in big features but certainly not fast enough. This is really the last place where, on occasions, there are almost no women at all, but that is becoming rarer.”

Much of Jodie’s success can be attributed to sharpness of thought, resilience under pressure and dogged single-mindedness. She also benefited from a tremendously strong bond with her mother Brandy, who divorced her father, Lucius, a former lieutenant colonel in the US air force before Jodie, the youngest of four children, was born.

Tasked with supporting her young brood as a single parent, Brandy began putting her young daughter forward for castings; Jodie landed her first role aged three in a Coppertone sunscreen commercial.

Bigger parts quickly followed, and by the early ’70s the precocious star was a regular on Hollywood film sets. Jodie was fiercely protected by her mother. Even so, after Martin Scorsese cast her in the role of a teenage prostitute in Taxi Driver (when she was 12), the Los Angeles Welfare Board stepped in, insisting that Jodie have a social worker attend the set with her.

Back then Jodie was adamant she was ready for the role: “I hate the idea that everyone thinks if a kid’s going to be an actress it means that she has to play Shirley Temple or someone’s little sister. That’s not reality any more. I don’t think the majority of the public really want to see that.” More than four decades later, the 55-year-old is well aware of how important it is to make intelligent choices when selecting roles.

Where enchanting horror audiences in The Silence of the Lambs may have set some actors on course for a succession of similar – but never as good – dramatic flicks, Jodie stepped back almost immediately, patterning the next 10 years with a directorial debut (Little Man Tate), a period drama (Sommersby) and even a sci-fi experiment (Contact), not to mention TV duties in Frasier and The X-Files.

The following decade was the same – Panic Room returned her to the spotlight, yet two years passed until her next appearance, and for every Inside Man and The Brave One, there were very subtle, very quiet projects that leant more on art than noise.

That’s why she has some sympathy for the plight of studios who perhaps get stuck in a rut of enlisting directors who are bankable and who readily boast previous success, particularly during a period when cinema is so financially unpredictable.

“It’s a huge act of faith to give any director a movie because you are hiring somebody, you are trusting somebody who makes every single choice. So I think it’s natural that in such risk-averse times, you want to hire the person who can ensure for you exactly what the result is going to be – you feel comfortable, they look like you and you’re in sync.

“But that’s the very moment where people who are different in any way – whether it’s colour or sex or something else – get left behind.”

As a gay woman, Jodie is qualified to speak out on such matters. And though she is extremely private, one has to wonder if some of her past reluctance to talk openly about her sexuality – she came out in 2007 after years of speculation – was down to self-preservation, particularly during the ’90s when she was playing more romantic-oriented characters such as Mel Gibson’s love interest in Maverick, or a Civil War widow in Sommersby.

It was while filming the latter that Jodie was introduced to Cydney Bernard, who would become her longtime partner, and co-parent to her two sons, Charles, 19, and Kit, 16. The couple split amicably in 2008, and in April 2014 Jodie married actress and photographer Alexandra Hedison.

Jodie refuses to divulge details of her private life. Asked if her sons might follow in her footsteps she replies curtly, “I don’t know, you’d have to ask them. My older son does like to act and he does a lot of improv, while my little one doesn’t want to act at all.” She will admit to succumbing to the usual struggles of working motherhood, finding it impossible to raise children and give both acting and directing the time they deserve.

This, she explains, is why her directing career was never as prolific as she would have hoped, though now that her sons are older and more independent she plans to spend a lot more time behind the camera.

“I’ve made four movies, but I’ve made them in a long period of time. I think I’ve always felt comfortable making movies. I think my mind works that way, it always has.

“I’m much more comfortable directing than I am acting. Acting doesn’t come naturally to me, it’s not what I was born to do.

“It’s much easier for me to make decisions all day long and to see the big picture, as opposed to the small moments of acting,” she says.

“That’s really my personality – to commit to one thing and to focus on it 100 per cent, and stick with that for a long period of time. Acting is largely the opposite: you live in the moment, you experience it, but you’re not really thinking about the other stuff. That’s both beautiful and frustrating.”

Since starring in 2013’s sci-fi blockbuster Elysium, Jodie hasn’t spent much time in front of the camera, devoting her talents to television for which she has directed episodes for Orange Is the New Black, House of Cards and Black Mirror, along with releasing Money Monster, her fourth directorial effort for the big screen.

But this year she returns to acting in the high-octane thriller Hotel Artemis, set in a riot-torn near-future Los Angeles. “I only act when I love it and I love Hotel Artemis,” she says. “It’s really original and unlike any movie I have ever made or seen.” Jodie’s character, perhaps partly a reflection of herself, is dark, confident and powerful, but at times enchanting and vulnerable.

What sets Jodie apart from many of her peers is not her humour, calm, resilience or sense of dramatic magic. Arguably, it is her longevity and an ability to move with the generations, without planning too far in advance.

“The world is changing in extraordinary ways. Are we moving towards a cyborg life where computers are so much a part of our experience, and is that for better or worse? I don’t really know, but we are all negotiating these changes.

“We have social media and the banality of the news and perhaps we’ve accepted a life where we are objects of our pain, a sort of object of entertainment for other people.

“So no, I don’t really know what I am doing next and I don’t need to. Things always work out.”