Jodie Foster has long been a supporter of Mel Gibson, both personally and professionally. Even after his rage-filled/glum-c-nt explosion last year, Jodie gave interviews defending him and telling the world that she still loves him. Now Jodie covers the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter, and she’s talking up Mel yet again. She’s promoting her directorial work in The Beaver, which star (you guessed it) Mel. Jodie is doubling-down on his crazy, and I just want to shake her and yell “YOU DESERVE BETTER FRIENDS.” The article is all about how Jodie got The Beaver made, and there are lots of interesting anecdotes about Mel throughout the production. Oh, and the article starts out by describing how Jodie is working in Paris, with Roman Polanski. Jesus. This woman has no taste in male associates. The full Hollywood Reporter piece is here, and here are the highlights:

On Mel as a man: “He’s so incredibly loving and sensitive, he really is,” she says. “He is the most loved actor I have ever worked with on a movie. And he’s not saintly, and he’s got a big mouth, and he’ll do gross things your nephew would do. But I knew the minute I met him that I would love him the rest of my life.” She adds: “I know him in a very complex way. He’s a real person; he’s not a cardboard cutout. I know that he has troubles, and when you love somebody you don’t just walk away from them when they are struggling.”

Mel confided in Jodie about what was happening with Oksana: Before Gibson’s relationship with Oksana Grigorieva exploded in the public eye, he confided in Foster. “We talked about it all the way through, about what was going on in his life,” she says. “I don’t think he told me until it was something he couldn’t handle by himself.” Even while editing Beaver, Foster was aware that recordings of Gibson’s rants would be made public. “I knew about that,” she says. “He was upset. Then, on the last day of reshoots of Mel, it all came out.”

On Mel‘s work in The Beaver: “God, I love that man,” Foster says. “The performance he gave in this movie, I will always be grateful for. He brought a lifetime of pain to the character that we’ve been talking about for years, that I knew was part of his psyche and who he is. It’s part of him that is beautiful and that I want people to know, too. I can’t ever regret that.” Foster knows the Gibson affair means her film has a difficult journey ahead. But she never planned to make a huge audience-pleaser. “This is not a mainstream movie,” she says. “It does have mainstream actors, but that’s not this film. I don’t need to make those kinds of movies because my career as a director is a personal spiritual path. I don’t need to succeed in that way in order to have an identity. I already have one.”

Jodie on her history of depression: Gibson, in his e-mail, warmly recalls first meeting the young woman with “the piercing blue eyes” who looked as if “she just came from gym” and surprised him when she metamorphosed into a radiant leading lady. But she’s a very different person now, coming to terms with her own fears and insecurities — and acknowledging a depression that she says has been with her for years. “Depression is a part of my life I accept,” she says, explaining its cause as a sort of obsessive rumination. “You think about something and you think about it again, and you keep going back to a tragic or dramatic moment and try to understand all different angles — and that’s the process of depression, which is not being able to get out of a dramatic thought or feeling. Obviously, chemical depression is very different. But it’s a big part of my life, and you have to embrace that part of yourself.”

On Roman Polanski: “He is my opposite,” Foster acknowledges, even though she says she admires the controversial filmmaker behind such movies as Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby. “Every director you work with has their way, and the first two weeks is you figuring out their way and helping them. Some directors want lots of discussion and a real collaboration; some don’t want any. He’s different than I would be, but I can direct my own movies. He wants everything to come from him. There’s his crew, and they know it all comes from him. There’s no input from anyone else.” As for Polanski’s complicated character and the resurrection of his rape charge in the U.S., “That’s not my business,” she says.

On Kristen Stewart (who worked with Jodie in Panic Room): “I just love [co-star] Kristen Stewart, but I didn’t think she’d choose to be an actress. I said to her mom, ‘She doesn’t want that, right?’ And she’s like, ‘Well, yes, she kind of does.’ Because she’s very much like me: She’s not comfortable in life being a big, externally emotional person, beating her chest, crying every five minutes. I felt she was such an intelligent technician, so interested in camera — I thought that would translate to other things.”

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

Look, I have always been a Jodie Foster fan. Silence of the Lambs is one of my favorite films of all time, and I think it’s one of the best films of all time. Jodie The Actress – well, I will always support her, because I think she’s one of the best. I even think she’s got talent as a director – Home for the Holidays is one of my go-to Thanksgiving/Christmas movies. But Jodie as a person, as a judge of character, as a woman beyond the art… well, chick’s got issues. I understand her loyalty, and I understand her “It’s about the work” mentality. But as time goes on, that’s a lot of really nasty junk to ignore, isn’t it?

Photos courtesy of WENN.