NIM’S HOPE:
JODIE FOSTER IS ADVENTURE WRITER ALEXANDER ROVER

When Nim finds herself feeling alone and threatened on her island, she at last decides to try to reach out to the one person she is certain can help her:  Alex Rover, the swashbuckling hero of the novels she loves. But Nim is about to find out that Alex is actually Alexandra, a writer with a vast imagination who secretly leads a shockingly narrow existence – so narrow she hasn’t left her San Francisco apartment in months! Fearful of nearly everything, right down to invisible microbes, Alexandra appears to be just a shadow of the intrepid adventurer she has created – but unable to let Nim’s call for help go unanswered, she discovers that she, too, has a hero within. 

To play Alexandra, the filmmakers knew they needed an actress who could be at once comically petrified and emotionally true and, once again, set off on a search for this rare combo . . . when a twist of fate changed everything.  For, even as they were searching for an actress, an actress was pursuing them:  Jodie Foster, the Academy Award®-winning screen star, writer and director who had already fallen in love with NIM’S ISLAND when she received an early draft of the script. 

The filmmakers were thrilled and surprised.  “You don’t necessarily think of Jodie Foster and comedy in the same vein,” admits Paula Mazur.  “But Jodie really wanted this role, and she’s certainly one of the best actresses alive, so we thought that if she believed she could pull it off, she certainly could.  And of course she far surpassed anything that we could have imagined. Everyone was excited to have this great opportunity to share Jodie’s incredible talent to appeal to a really broad audience."

Like Abigail Breslin, Foster started her career at a young age, garnering her first Oscar® nomination at age fourteen for her performance in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.  She went on to become one of the film world’s most sough-after dramatic actresses, as well as an accomplished writer and director, garnering two Academy Awards®, among numerous other accolades, for searing performances in The Accused and Silence of the Lambs.  With that pedigree, everyone was intrigued to see what she would do with the humorously unhinged role of Alexandra Rover, adventure writer and agoraphobic extraordinaire. 

Says Mark Levin:  “Once Jodie took on the role of Alexandra, we simply couldn’t imagine it any other way.  Her performance is a lot of fun because Jodie takes that harder, darker image you normally have of her in films and kind of turns that on its ear for this role!  The idea of her playing this writer leading an agoraphobic life and discovering her inner child started to seem like the perfect journey for Jodie to take the audience on.  The lightness and energy she ultimately brought to the comedy was remarkable.” 

Foster says it was the spirit of the tale that captivated her so completely from the start.  “It’s a wonderful story that inspires girls – and boys – to take adventures and really experience the world.  Nim shows what being the hero of your own life story is all about,” she says, “as opposed to the kind of passivity that we see so much of today.  I think people need to remember that at any age.” 

Her own adventurous side also was intrigued by the chance to dive into a performance driven by pratfalls, cold sweats and lots of very physical comedy.  “It’s rare that I find a comedy that I feel I can really sink my teeth into, but this was certainly it,” Foster says of the screenplay.  “I also feel that there is something very touching in Alexandra’s awkwardness and wackiness. I’ve made a lot of dramas about fear and part of the humor of Alexandra is that she is completely plagued by fear.  But her fears are simply the spider that’s crawling on her computer, or someone tapping her on the shoulder, or even stepping outside her front door.   So that was an interesting twist. And it was fun to explore the kind of inner courage Alexandra needs to find just to go through an airport and eat strange food and leave everything she’s familiar with behind.”

Once Alexandra heads to Nim’s Island, however, her life takes a sharp turn and she finds herself in situation she once only imagined in her head – riding a zip-wire through the tree-tops of the jungle, swimming with giant whales and flying in helicopters, not unlike her fictional adventurer Alex Rover.  Although Foster says she’s never really been an extreme outdoors sort of person, stunt coordinator Glenn Reuhland was impressed with how she attacked the role’s many action scenes in the air, on land and underwater.  “Jodie’s ability to go into any situation, even in the underwater tank, and be very relaxed and comfortable was just fantastic,” he says.  “She’s a very, very fit woman and that shows in her performance.” 

As Foster prepared for the role, it got even more personal when she discovered that Nim’s Island was on her elder son’s summer reading list.  “We got his summer reading list and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Nim’s Island so we read the book together and then he read it to his little brother, which was just lovely,” she recalls.  For author Wendy Orr, the Foster family’s love of the book was especially gratifying. “To hear that the book got Jodie’s son excited about reading was just so special for me and it brought layers of meaning to Jodie being cast as Alexandra,” she says. 

Once on the set, Foster hit it off right away with Abigail Breslin.  “Abigail’s a wonderful little actress,” Foster says.  “There are parts of her that remind me of when I was a kid, especially since she’s already been doing this for a long time.  She has very natural instincts about how to be real and just doesn’t stress out about it at all.” 

She also got a big kick out of Gerard Butler in the role of Alexandra’s creation and alter ego, Alex Rover, with whom she maintains a constant back-and-forth banter as she faces one fear after another.  “I love Alex because he’s just a great character,” she says.  “He has this amazing life where he does things like escape out of a pit of spiders but now he has to spend his time with this neurotic, eccentric middle-aged woman.  And Gerard brings such a great sense of humor to that.  He was wonderful to work with.” 

Butler was equally thrilled to work with Foster, noting that they had to navigate a less-than-conventional divide between fiction and reality in her scenes with Alex Rover, the worldly character who sprang out of her sheltered imagination.  “We had such a great time together, sometimes I had to pinch myself,” he confesses.  “We had great fun experimenting and discovering new ideas and I think her character is hilarious.  Alexandra and Alex have a dynamic that is very unexpected.”

The natural charm and humor of Foster’s performance put everyone involved in the production at ease.  “Jodie brought something wonderful to the story which was a sense of reality,” sums up Jennifer Flackett.  “You know, Alexandra is always crashing into trees and falling down and is engaged in all this physical comedy, but Jodie, who is so sharp, brought a very authentic quality to all that that made it not only very, very funny but believable, too.”