The ‘True Detective’ actress says she was physically shaken by a lion when she was a child actress.
Acting professionally since she was a child, Jodie Foster has accumulated a litany of interesting stories from her time on various sets.
During a recent appearance on “The Graham Norton Show,” the 61-year-old actress spoke about a scary incident that took place during one of her earliest projects, “Napolean and Samantha.”
The film follows a young boy and girl on their dangerous trek up a mountain alongside their pet lion, Major, a reformed circus animal.
Foster, who was 9 at the time, said there were three large cats on set: the star lion, a stunt lion and a stand-in lion.
“I was working with the stand-in lion and I guess he had a little piano wire that was pulling him,” the “True Detective” actress explained.
“We finished the take and I was going up the hill and all I remember is I remember seeing his mane come around and then he picked me up sideways, and shook me in his mouth and turned me around,” she shared, much to the horror of fellow guest Olivia Coleman.
“And I’m watching everybody leave, going like, ‘What’s happening?’… I remember feeling like, ‘Oh it’s an earthquake!’ because I was getting shaken,” she added. “The trainer said ‘Drop it’ and because the lion was so well-trained he opened his mouth and dropped me down.”
The film, which also stars Johnny Whitaker and Michael Douglas, was released in 1972.