Jodie Foster will receive the 2013 Cecil B. Demille award for lifetime achievement at the Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced Thursday.

Foster, 50, will be the fourth-youngest person to receive the honor and follows in the footsteps of recent honorees Al Pacino, Warren Beatty and Morgan Freeman. The honor was announced at a press conference Thursday by Foster's Panic Room co-star Kristen Stewart, along with Simon Baker.

Jodie Foster: Leave Kristen Stewart alone

"This is a special moment for me," Stewart, 22, said at the news conference. "She's been really important in my life for a long time."

Foster famously defended Stewart against intense media scrutiny over the summer shortly after it was revealed Stewart had cheated on her longtime boyfriend, Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson, with married director Rupert Sanders. "If I were a young actor today, I would quit before I started. If I had to grow up in this media culture, I don't think I could survive it emotionally," Foster wrote in an essay for The Daily Beastback in August.

Foster, an Oscar winner for her role in Silence of the Lambs, most recently directed the Mel Gibson family drama The Beaver and starred in Carnage, both of which hit theaters last year.

The Golden Globes, hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, will air live on NBC on Sunday, Jan. 13.