Hollywood icon Jodie Foster is having a good laugh at artificial intelligence — and how easily it forgets film history. In a recent chat with Variety, the two-time Oscar winner pointed out that AI tools often skip over her role in the original Freaky Friday, despite her being the first on-screen Annabel.
“Do you know who forgets that I was the original Annabel? ChatGPT,” Foster said with a grin. According to her, when AI platforms are asked about Freaky Friday, they usually start with the 2003 version starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, completely bypassing the 1976 film.
“AI has no recollection of the ’70s,” Foster joked, summing up the generational blind spot in one line.
The Forgotten ‘Freaky Friday’ That Started It All
Long before the body-swap comedy became a Disney staple, Freaky Friday began as a children’s novel written by Mary Rodgers in 1972. The first film adaptation arrived in 1976, with a young Jodie Foster playing Annabel opposite Barbara Harris.
Nearly three decades later, director Mark Waters reinvented the story for a new generation with the 2003 remake — a version that has since become the most widely remembered.
While the remake became a pop-culture classic, Foster’s version quietly laid the foundation — even if AI doesn’t seem to think so.
Why Jodie Foster Said No to ‘Freakier Friday’
Adding another layer to the story, director Nisha Ganatra recently revealed that she tried — repeatedly — to convince Foster to make a cameo in the upcoming sequel Freakier Friday.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Ganatra admitted she “begged” Foster to appear but never got a yes — or even a clear reason why. Despite multiple attempts, the cameo never happened.
A Lighthearted Dig With a Bigger Point
Foster’s comment wasn’t just a joke — it highlighted a growing conversation in Hollywood about how AI reshapes cultural memory. As algorithms pull from the most-clicked, most-referenced material, older films and performances risk being quietly erased from mainstream recall.
For someone like Jodie Foster — whose career spans decades and eras — that blind spot is both amusing and telling.
Final Words
Jodie Foster may not lose sleep over being forgotten by AI, but her Freaky Friday moment is a reminder that Hollywood history doesn’t begin in the 2000s — even if machines think it does.
And whether AI remembers it or not, Foster’s legacy firmly belongs to every era it tries to skip.
