Jodie Foster Says 'Traumatic' Gun Incident Led To Her Exit From Live Theater

Jodie Foster, 61, recently opened up about a terrifying experience she encountered during her college years shortly after John Hinckley Jr.'s assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan.

As many may recall, March 30, 1981, marked the day when Hinckley, aged 25, shot Reagan in Washington, D.C., reportedly in an attempt to impress Jodie Foster, who was an 18-year-old actress at the time. Hinckley was later acquitted based on mental illness and was committed to a hospital.

Following the attempted assassination, Jodie Foster said she experienced a "traumatic" experience at her college play when a man brought a gun into the theater.

When speaking to actress Jodie Comer for Interviewmagazine, Jodie Foster opened up about the incident that scarred her for life.

"I’m finally able to admit that the one bit of theater I did when I was in college, there was so much trauma involved in it," Foster, who went to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, told the outlet. "Well, just quickly, the play happened in two weekends, and I did the first weekend, and in between the first weekend and the second weekend, John Hinckley shot the president."

The actress explained that while it was a "long time ago," it was "a huge moment in her life. "You probably don’t even know, but he shot him in order to impress me, and he had written letters to me, so it was a big moment in my life," she added.

As one may expect, the incident was extremely traumatic for Jodie Foster and changed her life forever.

"The world fell apart, there were Secret Service people everywhere, I had bodyguards, and I had to be taken to a safe house," she told the magazine. "And I was in the middle of these two weekends of this play, and I had the dumb idea of 'the show must go on.' So I was like, 'I have to do that second weekend."

During one of Foster's performances, she noticed a "guy in the front row" who had also been there the night before. "I decided to, the whole play, yell, 'F-ck you, m-therf-cker!' I just decided that I was going to use this guy."

"And then the next day, it was revealed that this particular guy had a gun, and he had brought it to the performance, and then he was on the run," she said.

That moment has such an impact on the now 61-year-old that she says she may never do live theater again.

As expected, the "Maverick" actress was in danger as the suspect was still on the run, and one day while she was in class, a "bodyguard guy came and threw me onto the ground while I was in the class, which was really embarrassing, because there were only 10 people there."

"It was a traumatic moment, and I’ve never admitted that maybe that has something to do with how I never wanted to do a play again," Foster added. "It was all part of that. I talked myself into loving theater and going to theater, but somehow feeling like I couldn’t make that commitment to ever do it again."

On Friday, April 19, during the 15th annual event, Jodie Foster left her mark at TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.

“The truth is Jodie Foster deserves a hand and footprint ceremony solely for her work in 1976 alone — films she made when she was 13 years old — 'Taxi Driver,' 'Bugsy Malone,' 'Freaky Friday,' and 'The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane.' You could see her range already,” TCM host Ben Mankiewicz said in a statement, per The Hollywood Reporter.

“Nearly 50 years later, we have an answer to this question: ‘What is a Jodie Foster character?’ The answer is: There is nothing she can’t play," he added. "If you want evidence of that, just look at the two movies she’s won Oscars for — a rigid, but dogged FBI agent in 'The Silence of the Lambs' and a self-assured free spirit who summons the strength to seek justice in 'The Accused.'"

“To make it even more impressive, she’s also an accomplished filmmaker, directing for television and film, including a movie I watch every Thanksgiving — 'Home for the Holidays' from 1995.”

The Oscar-winning actress said the ceremony was an unexpected surprise.

"I had no idea," she told PEOPLE Magazine. "I thought it was just something for me, because it meant something to me as a kid, but I didn't realize it was such a big deal, and all my friends were like, 'Wait, what? What's happening?' So it's kind of great."

Her honor marked the 11th hand and footprint ceremony held at the event.