Jodie Foster says Gen Z can be ‘really annoying’ to work with

Simon Kelly

She had praise for one young actor in particular, however.

Jodie Foster has admitted that she finds Gen Z-ers “really annoying”, saying that their attitude towards work difficult to understand.

In an interview with the Guardian, the 61-year-old joked that those commonly referred to as ‘Zoomers’ (born between 1997 and 2012) have a completely different attitude in the workplace than other generations.

“They’re really annoying, especially in the workplace,” the Silence of the Lambs star told the UK outlet. “They’re like: ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10.30am.’ Or 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?’”

Jodie Foster says Gen Z-ers can be ‘really annoying’ to work with

Foster, who had already starred in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver at the age of 14, said that the younger generation “need to learn how to relax.”

She added that they also need to learn “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.”

In the interview, the Oscar-winner revealed that she made an effort to reach out to The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey, asking them to introduce her at the Elle magazine Women in Hollywood celebration in November.

“I reached out to Bella, because we’d never met, and said: ‘I want you to introduce me at this thing,’ which is a wonderful event about actors and people in the movies, but is also very much a fashion thing. Which means it’s determining who represents us.”

Foster, who is set to star in the upcoming True Detective series Night Country, praised the 20-year-old, saying they are a good example of an actor emerging in a new ‘vector of authenticity’.

“Bella, who gave the best speech, was wearing the most perfect suit, beautifully tailored, and a middle parting and no makeup,” she said about Ramsey, who is non-binary.

Foster also revealed that she struggled to challenge gender stereotypes with her own son, saying that he “watched television and came to the conclusion: oh, I just need to be an asshole. I understand. I need to be shitty to women and act like I’m a fucker.

“And I was like: ‘No. That’s not what it is to be a man! That’s what our culture has been selling you for all this time.’”