16. Jodie Foster

Jodie was one sharp kid. She taught herself how to read before she turned three and later on, she attended Ivy League Yale University before pursuing her acting career.

Foster is also a film director and a producer.

She began acting in commercials at the age of three, and her first significant role came in 1976 as a child prostitute in “Taxi Driver,” for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

She won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1989, for playing a rape victim in “The Accused,” and in 1991, she starred in a cult movie ”The Silence of the Lambs” as Clarice Starling. This performance received international acclaim and her second Academy Award for Best Actress.

“I had a prodigious life, living in a grown-up world when I was a child. But I think my abilities were about perceptiveness, and they were about examining psychology and examining people and relationships,” said the actress about herself.

“I feel at various times in my life that I’ve been at a point where I had to choose between a death sentence and a life sentence. And I want to live. What do I do to live? What do I do to be vital? And the answer is always creativity. The answer is always art.”

We couldn’t agree more.