We talked and laughed for hours, sharing spontaneous mysteries and venting our boredom. I grew to love that kid," she says, reminiscing about a then 11-year-old, carefree Stewart playing a basketball game on set. "I was pregnant at the time and found myself daydreaming of the child I might have soon. Would she be just like Kristen? All that beautiful talent and fearlessness...would she jump and dunk and make me so proud?"
"Actors who become celebrities are supposed to be grateful for the public interest," Foster says, noting that she wouldn't have been able to withstand growing up in today's saturated star culture. "After all, they're getting paid. Just to set the record straight, a salary for a given on-screen performance does not include the right to invade anyone's privacy, to destroy someone's sense of self."
Foster goes on to offer Stewart a piece of advice that "this too shall pass."
he paints a stark picture of how much has changed in 11 years: Foster imagines Stewart as a little girl, "twirling in the surf... singing at the top of her lungs, jumping and spinning around in the cold water, all salty, sandy, full of joy and confidence."
Cut to a scene from the present day: "A beautiful young woman strides down the sidewalk alone, head down, hands drawn into fists. She's walking fast, darting around huge men with black cameras thrusting at her mouth and chest. 'Kristen, how do you feel?' 'Smile Kris!' 'Hey, hey, did you get her?' 'I got her. I got her!' The young woman doesn't cry. F- no. She doesn't look up. She's learned."
Foster finishes with a paragraph partially written in the second person - perhaps her way of directly addressing her onetime costar. "Eventually this all passes," she says. "The public horrors of today eventually blow away. And yes, you are changed by the awful wake of reckoning they leave behind. You trust less. You calculate your steps. You survive."
