Here’s Jodie Foster’s net worth, and how much she reportedly passed on by turning down Hannibal. Hard as it is to believe, Jodie Foster has been acting for over 50 years now. The young Foster got her start in the late 1960s appearing in the likes of The Doris Day Show, before starring in a line-up of movie classics in the 1970s, including Freaky Friday, Bugsy Malone and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. After taking some time away from her acting career in the early 1980s, she earned critical praise for her performance in 1988’s The Accused, where she plays a sexual assault survivor seeking justice against her attackers.

In 1991 she appeared in her most iconic role as FBI rookie Clarice Starling in The Silence Of The Lambs. Starling is recruited to consult with eerie, incarcerated serial killer Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) to hunt down another killer dubbed Buffalo Bill, who skins his victims. The movie was a gigantic success upon release, receiving praise for its performances and taut direction, with Foster and Hopkins later taking home Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Actor respectively. Even now, Starling is considered one of the best female protagonists in horror cinema, which is largely down to Jodie Foster’s performance.

Later Jodie Foster movies include Maverick, Nell and Contact, with the actress also moved into directing during the 1990s. This includes Little Man Tate,Home For The Holidays, and some recent TV projects like the “Arkangel” episode of Black Mirror. Naturally, following the success of The Silence Of The Lambs, Foster was heavily in demand with studios and commanded fees such as $5 million for Maverick up to $15 million for projects like Anna And The King or 2007’s The Brave One. This puts Jodie Foster’s estimated net worth at around $100 million, according to TheRichest.

One major “what if?” in Jodie Foster’s career is 2001’s Hannibal, with the actress declining to reprise the role of Starling. Author Thomas Harris’ sequel novel was around a decade in the making, and while it was a major bestseller it also received mixed reviews, with many finding it too baroque and lurid. The ending and its treatment of Starling as a character were also controversial, and while Foster expressed interest in returning to the role following Silence Of The Lambs, she disliked the eventual novel and its portrayal of Clarice.

That’s why Jodie Foster passed on Hannibal, though at the time the production claimed she was busy working on another project. According to a Los Angeles Times report in 1999, Jodie Foster was set to earn $15 million to reprise the role before she passed. Julianne Moore later took over the role for Hannibal, while Foster has expressed no regrets about turning it down, stating in a 2005 Total Film interview when asked she saw the final project: [Whispers] “I saw Hannibal. I won’t comment.”