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Jodie Foster was mauled by a lion as a 9-year-old; recalls camera crew running away: ‘It picked me up and…’

Actor Jodie Foster recalls her time as a child actor on the sets of Napoleon and Samantha where she got attacked by lion.

3 min readNew DelhiJan 20, 2026 06:12 PM IST

Jodie Foster recalls traumatic experience of working with a lion. (Photo: Reuters)

The set of a movie can very quickly turn into a dangerous place when there are stunts or difficult physical actions involved. A lot can go wrong, and for actor Jodie Foster, something went terribly wrong on the sets of the Bernard McEveety directorial Napoleon and Samantha. Apart from Foster and Michael Douglas, the 1972 film also starred a lion, which is a pet in the film. However, during the shoot, the lion suddenly decided to take matters into its own hands and attack Foster, scarring her for life.

The actor shared this story during an interview with W Magazine. She started reciting the terrible incident and said, “I was mauled by a lion when I was eight and a half or nine. The lion picked me up, shook me around, moved me horizontally, and then dropped me. I had two perfect punctures on one side and then two perfect punctures on the other, on my hip. But as the years have gone on and we get bigger, you know, who even knows where they are anymore? They kind of just move around.”

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The actor continued and said, “I was in shock, so I don’t really remember that much. I remember the event. I saw his mane come forward, and I had worked with the lions, but when he picked me up, he picked me up and then moved me sideways and shook me around. And so, as he turned me back and towards the whole camera crew, I saw the whole camera crew run — except sideways. So, I saw them running sideways, taking all their equipment with them, just like, running away from me.”

After being left alone by the entire crew, the Taxi Driver actor revealed that the lion’s trainer was the only one who came to her rescue. “I guess the trainer said ‘drop it’, and the lion dropped me out of his mouth. I think that was probably the scariest thing that ever happened to me when I was making a movie. I’m not sure I had time for fear, honestly. After I got out of the hospital, and it was deemed I was okay to work and everything, I went back to work with the same lion.”

Foster also revealed that during a later scene the lion looked as if he was approaching her, and she got terrified and ran away.

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