Los Angeles, Jan. 15 -- Jodie Foster has offered a candid and quietly powerful reflection on why she believes she was largely spared the sexual abuse that has scarred so many lives in Hollywood, attributing her experience to the authority she acquired at an unusually young age.

In an interview with NPR's Fresh Air, the "Silence of the Lambs" star said her first Academy Award nomination in 1977, earned for her harrowing turn as a teenage sex worker in "Taxi Driver", fundamentally altered her standing within the industry. Foster was just 14 at the time of the nomination, an achievement that, she believes, placed her in a rare position of authority far earlier than most. "So by the time I had my first Oscar nomination, I was part of a differe...