The next milestone in Jodie Foster’s renaissance has been reached: she has just won her first Emmy ever for her role in “True Detective: Night Country.”
During the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Foster took the stage at the Peacock Theater to accept the statuette for best actress in a limited series for her portrayal of sharp-tongued police chief Liz Danvers, who is tasked with investigating the disappearance of eight men in the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska.
Her acclaimed performance in the HBO anthology series came more than three decades after her other memorable law enforcement appearance: as FBI agent Clarice Starling in “The Silence of the Lambs,” the 1991 film that earned her her second Academy Award for Best Actress (she won her first in 1988 for “The Accused”).
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Foster has already made a lasting impression on stage. In 2013, she gave a memorable speech that got personal while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the Golden Globes. In it, the veteran actress also mentioned her sexual orientation and publicly thanked her former partner, with whom Foster has two children.
“I think I suddenly feel the need to say something that I’ve never been able to say publicly before and that makes me a little nervous,” Foster said. “I came out about a thousand years ago, in the Stone Age, in those very primitive days when a fragile young girl confided in trusted friends, family and colleagues and then gradually proudly confided in everyone who knew her, everyone she actually met.”
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Foster’s return to the film and television scene began earlier this year when she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for the Netflix film “Nyad.” In the film, she played Bonnie Stoll, the best friend and coach of long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad (Annette Bening).
True Detective: Night Country received a total of 19 Emmy nominations, a culmination of recognition for the series’ impressive fourth season, which became the most-watched episode of the franchise following its debut in January.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
