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In a day and age in which we’re constantly talking about the impact of art and how it relates to activism, Jane Fonda is undoubtedly the blueprint. When I heard I had the opportunity to talk to the actor and activist, I was floored. I’ve had the great fortune of crossing paths with Jane during moments that, quite honestly, you’d probably expect, whether it be an organizing event or a night celebrating powerful women. But this was my first opportunity to be able to sit with her and dive deep into her career, how she developed such a deep passion for everything she does, and how she ensures that her platform is always being used for the greatest good.
We also discussed in detail her Netflix show, Grace and Frankie, and how it has broken barriers for the way we view aging in Hollywood, the importance of self-prioritization, her first Glamour cover in 1959, and her tireless work with Fire Drill Fridays and the newly launched Jane Fonda Climate PAC. I had such an incredible time talking to her and learning from her. I hope you enjoy our conversation just as much as I did.
Yara Shahidi: This is very full circle, thinking about your first Glamour cover. How did you reflect on the span of time—and the big life you’ve lived—between when you first appeared on the cover to who you are now?
Jane Fonda: When I saw that cover from 60 years ago, the first thing I was reminded of is how things have changed. I wasn’t famous. In those days, magazines just put models on the cover and I was a model. And then I thought, If somebody had told me that, at almost 85 years old, I’d still be working as much as I am and feeling as good as I do, I wouldn’t have believed them. At that time in my life, I doubted I would live past 30. Just thinking about that filled me with hope. I didn’t give up. I kept going. I tried to get better. I did.
Something I’ve heard you speak on is the importance of finding mission and purpose in what you do. You’ve said you didn’t wake up wanting to be an actor or an activist, but there was a moment when something clicked. When did you realize acting was a path for you, and what had to fall in place to realize how important your activism was going to be?
My God, I didn’t know what my path would be until I was in my 30s. If you’re curious and you’re healthy and you’re open, eventually who you are and where you’re supposed to be will come to you. And it could take a long time.
That reminds me of something my grandfather and my mother have always told me, which is: There’s nothing more interesting than an interested human. How do you maintain that curiosity?
Curious means you’re going to ask people a lot of questions, it means you’re going to read a lot of books, it means that every situation you’re in, you're going to want to find the positive. For older people, if you stay curious, you will also stay young for a long time. I’m younger now than I was when I was 20.
I’d love to hear how you brought where you were in your career and what matters to you to Grace and Frankie. What was the process like developing such an iconic show? And to have a 94-episode run is almost unheard-of nowadays.
Grace and Frankie was created by the writers, not by Lily Tomlin and me. In fact, I had very, very little to do with the creation of the scripts as we went along. A number of years prior to making the series, I had written a book that became a best seller called Prime Time about getting older, and it included everything including very detailed information about sex, and so I gave it to the writers and I could weigh in quite a bit. Not on the writing—just because you can write a book doesn’t mean you know anything about how to write a comedic sitcom—but about sex, about the problems of sex when you’re older and the joys and the possibilities and vibrators and all of that, and I think that maybe that helped inspire them.
Black-ish, my own show, has come to a close after eight years, and it’s been really beautiful because we’ve had opportunities to reflect on the impact it’s made. I’d love to know, during seven seasons, what has stood out to you as the legacy of Grace and Frankie?
Two things, really. One is showing that a real betrayal bond can happen. The trauma—in this case for Grace and Frankie—finding out their husbands of 20 years want to leave them and marry each other—that is such a profound trauma. It questions your very identity. And being able to show that two women who were in their early 70s when that [happened]. I mean, what the hell do you do? How do you come back from that? And they did. They don’t simply survive. Because of their friendship, they’re able to become better people.
And the other thing is, I remember one day there was a scene where I was commenting on Frankie’s hair, I think. And I moved her hair back off her neck and I saw her skin and Lily’s skin is so beautiful that I said, “Oh, my God, your skin is so beautiful.” And as said that, I thought, I’m going to be on global television, loving on another woman and her beautiful skin, not in a sexual way, but just friendship, two women loving each other. And it made me so profoundly happy because you just don’t see it very often. And that kind of a friendship is unique to women and it’s lifesaving. So that was a real privilege and joy for me to be able to do.
We know education happens almost everywhere except the classroom; that it’s all around us. What have you found to be your major modes of education?
Some of my major epiphanies came through books, but also watching The Vagina Monologues [Eve Ensler’s 1996 stage play]. Before that, I had been a theoretical feminist. It was in my head, I had friends who were feminists, I made movies that were woman centered. I was scared to take the next step, and when I saw The Vagina Monologues, I was newly divorced…I didn’t have to try to dismiss something that might have exposed the compromises within my marriage, so I could be completely present. I had been crying, and then there was a monologue that made me laugh, and I think—because when you laugh, you’re open and vulnerable—my feminism descended from my head into my body. I could almost feel it, and it was a transformative moment for me that I will never forget.
You’ve talked before about the year you spent intentionally reflecting on your life, and that spoke to me, especially thinking of how many of my peers and I have social media and all these theoretical ways to look back on our life but many times they don’t capture the complexity. What was the impact of that year, and how have you chosen to continue that reflection process?
When I was about to turn 60, I realized that I was approaching my third act—my final act—and that it wasn’t a dress rehearsal. One of the things that I knew for sure is that I didn’t want to get to the end with a lot of regrets, so how I lived up until the end was what was going to determine whether or not I had regrets. And it also then dawned on me that in order to know where I was supposed to go, I had to know where I’d been, and so I thought, Well, now’s the time I’m going to research myself…a deep research called a life review. It totally changed the way I thought about myself and about how I wanted to live the last third of my life. And I realized the importance of being intentional about how we go through life.
What do you think was your most surprising realization in your life review?
That I’m brave.
Why do you think that wasn’t something you thought of yourself before? I could point to 30, 40 moments in which everybody else would look at you and say that you were brave.
I didn’t have very much confidence in myself, and it never occurred to me to give myself any kind of label that was positive. Also, I tended to gravitate toward people who were smarter and braver and morally stronger than I was. I always aspired to be more like them, but I never could imagine that I was like them.
One of the last in-person events I had gone to was Glamour’s [2019] Women of the Year Awards and you shared the stage with three youth activists in the climate change space. That was so emblematic of what you’ve done for your entire career. Who are the mentors or the people that invited you into spaces you didn’t feel you had a place in?
My only mentor that was older than me was Katharine Hepburn. I was in my 40s while we were making [the 1981 drama] On Golden Pond, and she didn’t like me. She let me know that. She said she learned to admire me but she didn’t really like me. She took me under her wing in a certain way and that was important. But really, most of my mentors are way younger than I am and have had way more trauma in their lives and have managed to turn those wounds into plowshares into power, and they’re the people who give me hope.
Through Fire Drill Fridays, through all of your initiatives, you’ve intentionally brought so many of my peers into the conversations. Why was that important to you?
The climate crisis first and foremost impacts BIPOC communities and people on the front lines because the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries assume these are communities that have no political power. I had no idea how much the diversity we brought to the Fire Drill Fridays stage would change my view of the climate crisis.
Whether it be your activism against the Vietnam War, collaborating with Patrisse Cullors, and now to your focus on addressing the climate crisis, if you were to connect all the movements that have gotten your attention, what has guided your activism?
Injustice. Things are all connected. I became an activist because of the Vietnam War, and I learned about why it started and what it meant. Then what does colonialism mean? Then what does racism mean? Then what? And suddenly the onion gets peeled back and you realize how the war is connected to everything else. We’re dealing with the climate crisis, but we’re also dealing with the need for a new mentality, the need to look at everything as interconnected cosmos. We all depend on each other and we have to protect each other—and that’s not just verbiage. This is an actual reality. We can’t live without the earth and we have to protect it. If we’re going to really solve the climate crisis, we also have to think and run our societies differently.
How do you maintain hope and joy when so much of your work revolves around having to steep yourself in the problems of today?
I try to pay close attention to the victories because they don’t always get reported in the media, like Kenyans forcing the government to outlaw single-use plastic bags. There are victories everywhere, and we have to celebrate those and allow those to remind us of what’s possible because they usually come from people who individually have no power but collectively have huge power.
Are there certain things on a day-to-day basis that you do to take care of yourself that bring joy regularly? How do you bring those into a never-ending schedule when it can feel so easy to write off self-care as the first thing that has to go when there’s so much on your plate?
One of the ways I take care of myself is I sleep eight or nine hours every night. I meditate and I try to be in nature as much as possible. Nature brings me great joy. I work out. When you get older, you realize that staying healthy is joyful and critical because age isn’t so much chronology. You can be very old at 84, which is my age, but you can also be very young. My dad died seven years younger than I am now, and he seemed so old because he was sick.
When did you realize that these were nonnegotiables for you? That your health and sleep were things that were worth prioritizing?
Your body is very forgiving when you’re young. So it took me a while to realize that. I abused my body a lot when I was younger. But as you get older, if you drink too much one night or not get enough sleep, you’re at half-mast the next day and you don’t like the feeling and that’s a motivation to take better care of yourself.
After years of dedication to this work, what’s your next move?
To challenge fossil fuel sycophants. We have to be able to get them out of office and replace them with climate champions, and we have only four more election cycles to do it. The science tells us: You see, burning fossil fuels creates a blanket of pollution around the globe, and that pollution holds the heat in, and that heat warms the planet, it warms the ground, it warms the oceans, it warms the air, and the scientists know that if the warming gets too hot, things are going to begin to die, and the ecosystems upon which we humans depend for life begin to die, and that process is going to reach a tipping point by 2030, at the end of this decade. So we have eight years. This is an emergency. It’s all we should be talking about.
Are there any notes you’d like to end on?
I want to encourage people to go to janepac.com and join my climate PAC and donate a dollar or two, whatever you can afford. But become part of this movement.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Photographer: Lauren Dukoff @laurendukoff
Stylist: Michaela Dosamantes @micalovesthis
Hair: Jonathan Hanousek @jjhanousek
Makeup: David De Leon @deleonmakeup
Producer: Viewfinders @viewfindersnyla
1959 Cover Photo: Karen Radkai
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