Jodie Foster Walks Cannes Red Carpet With Wife Alexandra Hedison

In a rare red carpet appearance, Jodie Foster arrived at the Cannes Film Festival with her wife of seven years, Alexandra Hedison.

Foster, who first attended the film festival as a 13-year-old, was not there to promote a movie or act as a member of the jury, but to accept an award. The actress was presented with the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, an honorary Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement.

The event was canceled last year but has returned in all its glamour and celebrity. Foster and Hedison posed on the red carpet ahead of the premiere of the film Annette, starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. Foster wore a white Givenchy dress and gold heels while her wife opted for flat sandals and a navy blue gown.

Directors Spike Lee and Bong Joon Ho presented the actress and filmmaker with her award, and Foster impressed the crowd with her fluency in French during her speech. At the beginning of the ceremony, Lee had joked, “I got one thing to say before I sit down. I wish I could speak French like Jodie Foster!”

Even when Foster attended the festival in 1976 for Taxi Driver, she refused to use translators and answered every question in French. The actress had attended a French prepatory school in Los Angeles and her family lived in France for a portion of her childhood.

During the ceremony, Spanish director Pedro Almodovar commented, “Who would have thought that the little Iris from Taxi Driver would have become the woman you have become?”

Foster and Hedison attended another film event together earlier this year, the Golden Globes. However, the two sported pajamas and attended virtually from their couch instead of wearing gowns on the red carpet. Both women were ecstatic when Foster won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture for The Mauritanian. “No way! Are you kidding me? I think you made a mistake,” Foster said at the time.

Foster famously came out in a speech at the Golden Globes in 2013.