Veteran actress Jodie Foster made it clear that she is not impressed with the work ethic of members of “Gen Z,” complaining during a recent interview that they would show up late if they weren’t “feeling it” and did not make an effort to sound professional in email correspondence.
The two-time Oscar-winner (for 1989’s “The Accused” and 1991’s “The Silence of the Lambs”) spoke to The Guardian about her upcoming projects, and the topic turned to her experience thus far working with younger generations.
Foster was just 15 when she received her first Academy Award nomination (for the 1977 film “Taxi Driver”), and she told the outlet that her own experiences growing up both in the public eye and in a tough business like the film industry was part of the reason she chose so often to reach out to younger actors and actresses.
“Well, I’m pretty fun. I mean – I don’t take anything seriously. I make jokes all the time,” she said.
“They need to learn how to relax, how to not think about it so much, how to come up with something that’s theirs. I can help them find that, which is so much more fun than being, with all the pressure behind it, the protagonist of the story,” Foster added. “I do a lot of reaching out to young actresses. I’m compelled. Because it was hard growing up.”
But she also noted that she occasionally found herself irritated by some of the workplace habits she saw in the younger generations.
“They’re really annoying, especially in the workplace,” she said of Gen Z in particular. “They’re like, ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10.30am.’ Or, like, in emails, I’ll tell them this is all grammatically incorrect, did you not check your spelling? And they’re like, ‘Why would I do that, isn’t that kind of limiting?'”