Jodie Foster isn’t lion about the perils of moviemaking.
The 61-year-old star of “True Detective: Night Country” recalled what could have been the first and last role of her life after a scary run-in with a lion during filming for the 1972 Disney film “Napoleon and Samantha.”
“We finished a take and I was going up the hill and all I remember is I remember seeing his mane come around and then he picked me up sideways, shook me in his mouth and turned me around,” Foster, 61, said while appearing on “The Graham Norton Show.”
“Every single person on the crew was running in the opposite direction and I’m like sideways watching everybody,” added the “Silence of the Lambs” star. “And they took their equipment, too.”
Foster’s pronouncement, which was made in tones of amusement, left Olivia Colman, Wanda Sykes and Scottish host Lorraine Kelly shocked.
“And I’m watching everybody leave going ‘what’s going on,’ quipped Foster who claimed she initially thought the entire crew was reacting to an earthquake due to the shaking.
According to Foster, she was later rescued by the lion’s handler.
“The trainer said, ‘Drop it’ and because the lion was so well-trained, he opened his mouth and dropped me down and I went running,” she said.
According to Foster, the lion was not so willing to give up on her as prey.
In one last-ditch effort, the animal “came after” her and “put one paw on me and then just waited like ‘I got her’,” the actor recounted.
Sykes, 59, later joked that she would have fought the lion for Foster prompting everyone to laugh.
Season 4 of HBO’s “True Detective: Night Country” premiered last month, starring Foster and Kali Reis and Detectives Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro as they investigate the disappearance of eight men who were conducting mysterious scientific studies in a remote region of Alaska. New episodes air on Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO and stream on Max.
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