Jane Fonda is a living movie legend. At 85 years of age, she maintains an amazing vitality and, up close, it is impossible not to be amazed by her beauty, her elegance and the sincerity that she has shown before a dedicated audience during the master class that she gave this afternoon in a packed Buñuel room. of the Cannes Film Festival.
The American actress, who wore a gray suit jacket to match her gray hair, was received amid loud applause, and she shared some of her experiences in the profession with the audience during a more than interesting rendezvous of an hour and a half that has fallen short. Owner of a career of more than six decades that includes two Oscars for best actress for Klute (1971) and The Return (1978), Fonda has admitted that she does not feel a particular passion in making movies, "only when I get involved in special projects ".
And she says she is surprised that they still call her to work at her age. "I want to make films that challenge me. I want to play something really complex," says the actress, who has the comedy Book Club - Ahora Italia on the billboard, and which is yet to be released 80 for Brady, another comedy in which four veteran friends -Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Sally Field and Rita Moreno- make it their mission to go to the Super Bowl and meet NFL superstar Tom Brady.
Both films highlight female friendship, something that the protagonist of Agnes de Dios values highly. "Unlike men, women look each other in the eye and can open our souls and ask for help. Men don't do that." Among her great friends, she cites Lily Tomlin, with whom she has shot four films and seven seasons of the Grace and Frankie series. "She's like a sister to me."
Asked about the secret to being in such good shape, she admitted that a few years ago she underwent cosmetic surgery "of which I am not happy", but "I take care of my diet, I walk, I sleep a lot -13 hours last night- and I maintain great curiosity." Fonda has spoken at length about some fellow professionals. He has remembered Lee Marvin with whom he shot The Explosive Ingenue in 1965: "He was always drunk but he was a magnificent human being. The film was low-budget and we worked long hours. One day he stood up and told me: 'We are the stars , we can't allow this because it means that the technical team still works harder. It was a great lesson."
Of Robert Redford, with whom she has acted in four films, the last one six years ago in Us at night, she confesses that "she was in love with him" and that she did not like kissing at all. "She was always in a bad mood and she thought it was my fault." "She is a good person and we have had a great time, but she has a problem with women," she commented. She, too, has not left Michael Douglas, an actor with whom she participated in The China Syndrome, and who a week ago was honored with the honorary Palme d'Or and had another talk with the public in the same room. "In Hollywood, everything is based on the relationships you have and Michael Douglas is very diplomatic. I have never been," she has stated regarding what his relationship with the mecca of cinema is like. "I have never felt that he is part of Hollywood. I don't get invited to his parties and the truth is that he hasn't cared much about my career."
About Godard he thinks that "he was a great director but a disaster as a man". And he has had words to recall the strong personality of Katharine Hepburn, who worked with her and her father Henry Fonda on On Golden Pool. "When she won the Oscar I congratulated her on the phone and she told me that she could never catch up with her. She was very competitive." That film was the only one in which he shared shots with her father, who won the golden statuette for best actor. "He was already very sick and I didn't want him to die without having worked together. That's why I bought the rights to the Ernest Thompson novel."
Of Alain Delon, however, he remembers that "he is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met". If Michael Douglas acknowledged that he stepped out of the shadow of his father Kirk when he was nominated for Wall Street, Fonda did so "when I moved to France." With the French director Roger Vadim, her first husband, she embarked on the mythical space odyssey Barbarella. "I had a very bad time filming. It was difficult to do the flying scenes and I had to get drunk for the nudes because I was very shy. Now I find her wonderful and fun." In that film she was blonde, "something that made me feel protected. By cutting my hair I felt liberated."
Shortly after he returned to the US, to protest against the Vietnam War and starred in The Return. Later she would be the turn of Dance, dance damn, "I did it because my mother committed suicide and it is something that my character also tried." In Klute she played a prostitute and to prepare for the role she talked to many of them. "I was shocked that they had all been abused as girls." As a result of there she began her social and feminist activism.
Currently, Fonda does not have any project underway because it is focused on its fight against climate change and on the upcoming elections. "This is very serious. There would be no climate change if there was no racism and no patriarchy." His thing is activism, "he has given me life." Fonda has previously been involved in the fight for civil rights, against the Vietnam War and has spoken out in anti-nuclear protests. And she is not going to stop demonstrating and raising her voice even if she is stopped time and time again. A simply fantastic woman.
