John Hinckley Jr., the shooter who made an attempt on President Ronald Reagan’s life to impress Jodie Foster in 1981, has a message for the actress 45 years later.

“I just wish Jodie Foster well,” he said on an episode of the “The Mark Joseph Show” podcast released Wednesday, Aug. 12. “I don’t really see her movies, but I wish her well. And I know she’s doing quite well … I hope she has a good life.”

Joseph, the podcast host, produced the 2024 film “Reagan,” a biographical drama starring actor Dennis Quaid as the late president. USA TODAY has reached out to Foster’s representative for comment.

Hinckley was arrested on March 30, 1981, after shooting then-President Reagan outside of the Washington Hiton hotel in Washington, D.C. Reagan survived the incident and spent 12 days in the hospital recovering. The bullet that struck Reagan had bounced off of a limousine – one of many bullets fired in the shooting spree, which wounded three others.

In a note he wrote before the shooting, Hinckley, then 25, said he shot Reagan to impress then 17-year-old Foster. Her breakout role in “Taxi Driver” in 1976 had jump-started her career.

In June 1982, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. The case had a significant impact on insanity defense reform in the U.S. Hinckley was held at St. Elizabeths Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Washington, D.C., for 35 years. He was released in 2016.

Hinckley was barred from speaking to the media as a condition of his release, until 2022. U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman granted him full freedom that year, and said that Hinckley did not exhibit symptoms of mental illness as of then.

Foster told People in 2024 that the assassination attempt impacted her life. “The world fell apart, there were Secret Service people everywhere, I had bodyguards, and I had to be taken to a safe house,” she said. In 1982, she wrote a personal essay in Esquire titled “Why Me?” about the event.

“I had a dark heart in 1981, and I’ve overcome that,” Hinckley said on “The Mark Joseph Show.” He said he wants to be remembered as someone who’s changed.

And to Reagan, who died in 2004, Hinckley said, “I’m so sorry for what I did, and it was never anything personal … I think you’re a great man, and I would just ask for his forgiveness.”