I don’t know if anybody told you, but none of us knows what we’re doing,” announces two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster halfway through the Drama Actress Emmy Roundtable. She’s surrounded by two more Oscar winners — Expats’ Nicole Kidman and Lessons in Chemistry’s Brie Larson — who nod in agreement. The True Detective star continues, “and that’s the real beauty of it, having that freshness of doubting yourself.” Over the course of an hour at The Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica, that trio, along with The Morning Show’s Jennifer Aniston, Shogun’s Anna Sawai, Griselda’s Sofía Vergara and Feud’s Naomi Watts, discuss everything from mentorship to menopause.

Who here has ever lied to land a job? 

NAOMI WATTS Oh, for sure.

BRIE LARSON We all lied and said that we knew how to ride a horse, and we couldn’t.

NICOLE KIDMAN I can ride a horse, but I did lie about ice skating. Not a good one to lie about.

JENNIFER ANISTON I might have not been fully honest. I said I couldn’t ride a horse, just because I didn’t want to ride the horse.

WATTS Oh, I definitely added special skills to my résumé back in the day. Multiple languages, lots of weird sports.

SOFÍA VERGARA I didn’t lie to get a job, but I lied to my agents so they’d take me when I moved to L.A. I said I could sing and dance. Why not? I didn’t think they were going to send me out. Then they sent me to an audition for Chicago on Broadway.

EVERYONE No!

VERGARA But I got the part.

LARSON What?!

ANISTON Then what happened?

VERGARA I played Mama Morton in Chicago.

ANNA SAWAI Oh my gosh.

JODIE FOSTER So, lying pays off.

Jodie, you’ve been known to reach out to young actresses and offer advice. What prompts the outreach and what do you tell them?

FOSTER I guess I fancy myself as some kind of mother figure. If I see somebody drunk and on their face at an event, for example, I might be like, “So, what’s going on?” Because I feel for them, and I really am grateful for my mom getting me through all of that. Somehow I managed to have a series of rules that allowed me to survive.

For the rest of you, what would have been helpful to hear when you were still early in your careers?

WATTS Just allow yourself to be you and not compare yourself to other people. I lived very much under the radar for about 10 years, auditioning, and I was always finding myself in a waiting room with 10, 12 people, going, “Oh God, she looks sexy, I should be sexier. I wore the wrong outfit.” Or, “She looks intelligent, let me put some glasses on.”

FOSTER That you can say “no” was a big one for me.

ANISTON Yes!

FOSTER That’s what is good about this new generation. They’re very comfortable saying no, setting boundaries and going, “I don’t like that, and I want to do this.” I didn’t know that was possible.

Brie, I’ve heard you talk about your early days as a pop singer, and I’m amazed by the gumption you had as a young teen to push back and say no to things that didn’t feel right or good to you. Where did that come from and how was it received? 

LARSON Oh, not well. I’m just more comfortable with how uncomfortable it makes people that I’m very clear about what a yes and a no is for me. I’ve learned that if I can understand what a no is and be able to say it before I’m upset about it, it actually just avoids a lot of drama in the end. And the thing I like to remind myself is that you all can have what you want with me on set, but I have to go home and live with myself. Not to say I have a perfect track record. Of course, there were times where I was like, “Please, someone love me.” But my team used to joke that I was saying no before I was allowed to say no. I was like, “I’m not doing that.” Or, “That’s inappropriate.”

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