Today, Saturday, November 19, 2022, is iconic actor Jodie Foster’s 60th birthday. The actress is best known for playing Clarice Starling in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs – a role for which she won an Oscar. However, a year before this life-changing performance, she had a falling out with a major actor turned director over an unpleasant filmmaking experience.

Jodie began working with American actor Dennis Hopper in 1990 on his film Catchfire. This is the latest in a string of his directorial efforts in .

However, this time, Dennis not only directed but also starred. He takes on the role of Milo, an assassin who falls in love with Jodie’s character, Anne.

Filming is very stressful. Hopper reportedly had interference from the studio who didn’t like what he was doing in the picture.

Dennis’s original screenwriter, Ann Louise Bardach, was later interviewed about her work on Catchfire. She describes working with Dennis as “completely insane.”

Jodie Foster is feuding with her director (Image: GETTY)

Dennis Hopper hated his original cut, Catchfire (Photo: Getty)

“[Dennis] directed me to make a really tight, tense horror movie and what he ended up shooting was a… vaudeville caper,” Ann said. Working with Dennis was absolutely crazy.”

Despite these comments, she added: “He has a beautiful eye. Dennis is not a storytelling artist, he is a visual artist.”

But worst of all is the deteriorating relationship between Jodie and Dennis. Years later, she revealed how “difficult” it was to work under the star.

“I worked with an actor-director who was a huge pain,” says Jodie. That’s very difficult for me. Very difficult.” She later confirmed that she was talking about Dennis.

Jodie Foster and Dennis Hopper had a bitter feud (Photo: Getty)

There is further information that Jodie was unhappy about some scenes in the movie. One of them is a “gratuitous” shower scene in which Jodie is completely nude. She apparently assumed it would be cut and edited in the final version of the film. It is not.

One moment allegedly frustrated Jodie to the point of screaming “cut!” in the middle of filming a scene. Dennis is not happy at all.

He reportedly pulled Jodie aside and gave her a “lecture” about her behavior on the set of his movie.

However, Dennis doesn’t just fight with Jodie. He also found himself having to fight with the studio, which ultimately led to him withdrawing his name from the film.

“They took an hour out of my movie, and they took a half hour that I took out of the movie and put in,” Dennis said at the time. Then they took all my music out and threw it away. They included wonderful violin love themes alongside Jodie and I – this was a famous man and an artist, and it was certainly not a violin romance.”

He continued by cursing the editing company, Vestron. “This is not a Dennis Hopper movie,” he said. This is not directed by Dennis Hopper. This movie was directed by some idiot at Vestron.”

Dennis ended up taking his name out of the final cut of the film. In his place, the name Alan Smithee was announced as the director of Catchfire – a name used by Hollywood directors who no longer wanted to be associated with their films.

Dennis later re-released Catchfire as a director’s cut with 18 minutes of new footage. He renamed the photo Backtrack.