In Neill Blomkamp’s upcoming Elysium, Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) is a Secretary of Defense for Elysium, a satellite hovering above Earth where the wealthy live. Below, on Earth, everyone else isn’t as lucky.
Foster’s character in the film is steely, power hungry and anti-immigrant. And the interesting thing is character was originally written for a man. After he finished the script it suddenly occurred to Blomkamp, who directed the excellent District 9, that the character could very easily be a woman. He and producer Simon Kinberg drew up a list of potential actresses they’d like to portray the role and Foster was high on that list. However, Blomkamp never thought that he could get Foster in the role though.
That would be f—ing awesome, but there’s just no way. But then, within, like, a day I had a meeting with her and she said, ‘I want to play it.’ I was like,
‘Holy s—!’
Blomkamp didn’t know that he had a fan in Foster, who had seen District 9, and signed on because of that.
I felt it was a perfect movie [District 9] that I wished I’d been a part of. I was just like, ‘Whatever Neill does next, I’ll do.’
This isn’t the first time, Foster has played a role originally written for a man. Her character in Flightplan was supposed to be a father looking for his son.
Elysium opens wide on August 9th.
