Jodie Foster: being a child prodigy is inherently lonely

odie Foster as a Starbucks barista?? It’s a good thing the coffee chain didn’t hit the big time until the '90s or the Oscar-winning actress might’ve wasted her chops calling out orders for double-half-caff-triple-venti crappuccinos. In the new issue of Parade, the 45-year-old mother of two reveals that, despite her impressive career, she sometimes fantasizes about slinging coffee for a living or hitting the ski slopes all day.

Read on for interview excerpts in which Jodie reveals what it was like being a child star, why she’s never fallen in love and where it’s all going.

On being a child prodigy:
"Being a child prodigy is inherently lonely. I was one of them. You’re different from other kids. No one else can understand. There’s a longing to connect, a craving to say, ‘Here is the deepest part of me, the part that people don’t see.’"

On her long career:
"I’ve been working for 42 years. Sometimes I think, ‘What the hell are you doing? What’s the value of all this?’ I have fantasies about the things I might have done. I wish I’d been a ski bum or maybe had a job at a Starbucks in a ski place."

On why she hasn’t fallen in love yet:
"Oh, my life is basically from the head up. I’m definitely not proud of that. I’m very analytical."

On her childhood attitude toward acting:
"To me, acting didn't seem like much of a profession. My mom always said, 'By the time you're 16, your career will be over. So what do you want to do then?' She was correct. Most child actors' careers end early. They're lost."

On being a working mom:
"I’m still not sure where I’m going in my life. There are times when I don’t really know what I am here for. When I had my kids, I was burnt out on the film business again and wondering if this new identity as a parent was going to be fulfilling enough. I was forced to ask these really hard questions about myself: Is being a mother everything? Are you supposed to lose yourself in the process of being a mother?"

On her strained relationship with her mother:
"A parent’s love for her children is unconditional. I don’t think the reverse is true. In some ways, my mother’s life was given meaning through me. She didn’t have my opportunities. I had to take care of her, and that pretty much meant I had to wake up and go to work."

On being a child actor:
"People ask me if I missed anything by not having a normal childhood. The truth is, if I’d been an ambassador’s daughter or grown up on a farm in Missouri, I wouldn’t have had a normal childhood either. I had the only childhood I knew."
[source]