I just last night polished off an episode of The Daily Show from September 11, with guest Jodie Foster on hand to promote The Brave One, and if anyone needed reminding that she’s a great personality and totally a movie star, they should flag their TiVo for reruns of this episode.

The formidable intelligence and almost otherworldly sense of focus — I think that comes through in her work, and people remember that. But I guess it’s because Foster does relatively few films, does sparse TV interviews to promote them, and then totally stays out of the public spotlight apart from these projects that people tend to sort of forget just how funny and witty she is. Hers is a low-key wattage, but one that shines sincerely, as her banter with Jon Stewart proved. Talking up her film’s Death Wish roots, she says, “It’s a very sophisticated movie — there’s a lot of polemic, a lot of political overtones — but it’s also a really unsophisticated movie that works in a very primal, elemental way.”