The life of Jane Fonda

Brut America

This Hollywood legend has been arrested six times for her activism — from opposing the Vietnam War to fighting for climate justice. But Jane Fonda keeps going.   She presented the Palme d’or at the Festival de Cannes. This is Jane Fonda's story.  #Cannes2023

Transcript

00:00It's very hard to be young.

00:06You don't know what's ahead.

00:08What am I supposed to do?

00:09Who am I supposed to be?

00:14Very hard.

00:15Don't worry.

00:17It gets easier.

00:18And it does.

00:19I'm 85.

00:20It's easier because you've been there.

00:24Oh, that happened to me already.

00:26It didn't destroy me.

00:27It's okay.

00:28Very important thing I learned from AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, no is a complete sentence.

00:47I wish I knew that as a girl.

00:59There were no other women on the set.

01:02Nobody.

01:04Not directors, not the electricians, nobody.

01:07It was lonely.

01:09And it was hard because of that.

01:12Jane Fonda, do you think that there are still Barbarellas in the world today?

01:32That is, this race of free, generous, adventurous, brave, innocent and naive women?

01:42I hope so.

01:49I was 32 years old.

01:50I had a child and I was dead.

01:55I was a pretty old person.

01:57I had sort of shriveled up like a dead leaf on the branch and I suddenly started to get

02:02very mad about that.

02:11I lived in France for seven years and it was Vietnam and it was the war in Vietnam

02:16who forced me to ask myself certain questions about America.

02:19And I went back to the United States because I wanted to fight there in my country because

02:25I care about my country.

02:34I'm not very happy by what the picture is saying to women, which is if you get a good

02:38shrink and a good guy, everything will turn out all right and I don't think that's true.

03:38I have spent a lot of my life being identified by the man that I was with and thinking that

03:58if I wasn't with an alpha male that I wasn't validated.

04:08When I was about to turn 60 and I thought, this is the last act.

04:15First 30 years, middle 30 years, last 30 years.

04:20How am I supposed to go in my last 30 years?

04:24And I realized you can't know where you're going unless you know where you've been.

04:29So I did research on myself like I was somebody else.

04:34I did research on my life.

04:36And what I learned is Jane's brave.

04:40I hadn't really realized that before.

04:43And you know, I have a platform, I'm privileged, I'm white.

04:50I feel that I should use my privilege for a good reason.

05:00I was very honored because L'Oreal is a big brand and I was, you know, I don't think of

05:06myself as somebody that would be chosen for this.

05:11So I was surprised and I was very honored.

05:23Television is about words.

05:25The screen is smaller.

05:28In movies, the director is the ruler and the screen is big and so it's harder for older

05:34women because we have wrinkles and, you know, we don't look like we did when we were young.

05:39And it's more pleasant maybe to, you know, but because television is about words and

05:46more and more brilliant writers are writing television, that's a good place for older

05:51women.

06:05Hope is very different than optimism.

06:09An optimistic person says, everything's going to be fine, but they don't do anything to

06:15make sure that it's fine.

06:17Hope is a muscle.

06:20Hope, you have to work to make it so.

06:25You know, Greta Thunberg said, the Swedish climate activist, she said, don't go looking

06:30for hope, look for action and hope will come.

06:34And I've found that in my life.

06:35When I get depressed, I take action and the depression disappears and I become hopeful

06:40again.

06:41I've had a fabulous life.

06:55I've had a fascinating, I've had 12 lives or more, many different lives.

07:03I'm healthy.

07:04You know, I had cancer, but somehow, I don't know, it didn't count.

07:11I feel lucky every day I wake up and I feel grateful, thank God.

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