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
She presented the Palme d’or at the Festival de Cannes. This is Jane Fonda's story.
#Cannes2023
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Short filmTranscript
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.