http://www.catandgirl.com/view.php?loc=227
So I read this Cat and Girl, & I started to realise we don’t really have one, do we? I don’t mean in a John Hinckley’s obsession sense. Where is the next Jodie Foster? Scarlett Johansson is sort of close, but not quite. Is there a TV actress?
Is Jodie Foster just that distinctive?
Kirsten Dunst.
Scarlett Johannsen definitely isn’t, IMO. I don’t know how bright she is, but I suspect she has a stage mother from hell.
Scarlett has major issues with aging, and she’s not even in her 20s yet. She says disparaging things about aging/older women in nearly every interview. Its almost like she thinks women should shoot themselves on their 25th birthdays because they’re nothing but ugly, dried-up old husks by then anyway. Very strange.
Conversely, she appears to have a thing for much older men. And from the way she was gushing over John Travolta, shes not picky at all. Ugh.
Those issues cancel out any kind of Jodie Foster-like classiness and discretion, IMO.
Are we talking in a “serious(as in serious about the art, not as in dramatic)-actress” sense, or in an “all-around front-and-back-of-the-camera cinematic artist” sense? Or are we outside the career path and talking about in an “intelligent, classy, non-fame-whorish lady” sense? Or are we talking about in a “private, ambiguously-sexual enigma” sense?
I think that cartoon is entirely too dismissive of Natalie Portman (I doubt most people would know she is Jewish and not “WASPy” anyway").
Amanda Bynes.
…you’ll see.
I thought we were talking about ‘a child actress who has managed to rise above the stereotype and show true talent and skill with eclectic choices in roles’.
I’d put Natalie Portman in there, and potentially Kirsten Dunst, like others have mentioned.
If asked a couple of years ago, I would’ve suggested Lindsay Lohan, but she has turned out to be a complete bimbo.
Can anyone score me an introduction to Scarlett? She sounds right up my alley! 
In a curent interview in Esquire, Johannsen says that the whole “older man” thing was mostly press hype. She said she is attracted to some older men but has no problems with men her own age.
I’m still not sure what we’re talking about, but that’s what I assumed, too.
My money’s on Dakota Fanning. That kid’s got some serious acting chops, and seems extraordinarily poised and intelligent in interview situations.
(Well, she could be from the Girl’s generation. How old is she supposed to be, anyway?)
Yep, Natalie Portman and Kirsten Dunst would be my guesses, too. With a slight edge for Natalie, whose performances are lower-key and more “quirky” than Kirsten’s. Though Kirsten turned in a wonderful performance in The Cat’s Meow (actually, everyone in that movie did. It’s really a shame that the story sucked.)
I wouldn’t put Natalie Portman in there… in fact I would not put any of these actresses in there. Jodie was famous from the get-go, as a little girl. I think it’s easier to make the transition to adult roles when you start out as a teenager, as these other girls did (with the exception of Dakota Fanning). Much harder to shake off the “child star” label when you actually become famous as a child.
I don’t doubt some of them might have truly started out as children, but how many of them were truly famous before becoming teenagers? Everyone knew who Jodie Foster was when she was 10. You can’t say the same for the rest of them.
I should probably do my research before posting, rather than after. Jodie didn’t become huge until she was about 12. That said, I may be able to see Kirsten Dunst, who at least became famous around that age for “Interview With A Vampire”.
Eh, well Portman hit notoriety at 12 or 13 with Leon and Dunst at 12 with Interview with a Vampire. However you’re right that neither was quite as ubiquitous as Foster.
Looks more like you want to go up her alley!
No one’s mentioned Christina Ricci yet? 
Not only was she a talented and successful child actor who seamlessly (well, almost seamlessly) transitioned to adult roles, she’s also a producer: Pumpkin and Prozac Nation were produced by her company. Give her another five years, tops, and she’ll be directing and writing. (Foster didn’t direct until she was, what, 31?)
In addition to achievement in front of/behind the camera, Foster has a reputation as an intellectual, a “thinking man’s sex symbol,” and Ricci comes closer to matching that ideal that any of her peers, although Portman is probably in the running.
Jena Malone? She even played the child version of Jodie Foster’s character in Contact.
(Yes, I know that’s not quite what the question is asking. But Jena Malone anyway.)
You know who you’re all overlooking don’t you?
DREW BARRYMORE!!!
She was America’s Delight in ET, then discovered drugs before she became a teenager, and managed to vault from the dead into a career bimbo! The Charlie’s Angels movies? David Letterman strip tease? She’s got staying power, no matter how many producers and directors she has to blow!
Knowed Out nailed it. Drew Barrymore, without question, did an even better child-star to adult star transition than just about anyone. How could I have forgotten her?
I do wonder, though, just to complicate things, if any of these girls stand a chance at reaching the heights, critically, that Foster did as an adult.
I dunno, for the child actor who most successfully made the transition to adult roles, my money’s still on Christian Bale. Where’s the rule that our generation’s Jody Foster has to be female?