Jodie Foster says she may spend some time on cable’ after her big-screen turn in ‘Elysium’

SAN DIEGO – Jodie Foster is looking to cable TV as a future site for her Oscar-winning talent, joining other big-screen stars who are finding pay TV can pay off.

The 49-year-old actress and director says she is “developing a few things” likely destined for cable, calling the format “a good outlet for what I do.”

“I think I may spend some time on cable,” Foster said at July’s Comic-Con, where she was promoting her next big-screen role: Starring opposite Matt Damon in “Elysium,” writer-director Neill Blomkamp’s follow-up to his hit Oscar-nominated debut, “District 9.”

Due next March, “Elysium” is set 150 years in the future in a world where Earth is polluted, diseased and overpopulated, so the wealthiest citizens create a utopic habitat in space.

Foster wanted to work with Blomkamp after seeing “District 9,” which she called “a perfect film … the movie I wish I would have directed.”

Foster said she intends to direct again, but hasn’t found her next project. Her directorial credits include 1991’s “Little Man Tate,” 1995’s “Home for the Holidays” and last year’s “The Beaver.”

“It’s a long process,” she said. “Because I do make personal films, they’re hard to get off the ground, especially nowadays.”

That’s why cable might be her next stop, as it has been of late for such big-screen staples as Nicole Kidman, Kevin Costner and Julianne Moore.

“I think it’s a good outlet for what I do,” Foster said. “What I do are personal stories and, in some ways, usually involve family and they have equal amounts of comedy and drama, sometimes an absurdist twist, and they’re very verbal. And I like constructing complex characters and hopefully seeing this sort of tapestry of how they interact with each other over time evolve. Well, TV’s the place for that.”

So would the two-time Oscar winner helm a series?

“Maybe,” she said with a smile. “You never know.”