by Jane Fonda has never been one to hold back in her decades-long career, so why start now?
The two-time Oscar winner spoke for 90 minutes at the Rendezvous with Jane Fonda event at the Cannes Film Festival, where she gave her unfiltered thoughts on Hollywood and former costars, including Robert Redford, Katharine Hepburn, Michael Douglas and others. Here are the juicy highlights.
Robert Redford
“He’s a very good person,” Fonda shared, according to Deadline. “He just has a problem with women.” The chasethe screen adjustment of Barefoot in the park in 1967, The electric rider in 1979 and 2017 Our souls in the night. Fonda said she was “in love” with him during those first three films.
“He didn’t like to kiss,” Fonda said, adding, “I never said anything [to him about it]. And he’s always in a bad mood, and I always thought it was my fault.”
By their fourth film Fonda, out of love for him, realized that this was so not her fault: “What was I, about 80 years old or something. And I finally knew I was an adult. When he showed up on set three hours late in a bad mood, I knew it wasn’t my fault.”
Jean Luc Godard
Godard directed Fonda in 1972 Everything is OK. “He was a great filmmaker. I take off my hat. A great filmmaker. But as a man? I’m sorry. No no.”
LeMarvin
Fonda enjoyed making the 1965 western comedy Kat Ballou with Marvin and learned a few things about and from her co-star.
“I loved making the movie. And Lee Marvin was fantastic,” she said. ‘He was very funny. He was always drunk. We were staying at the same motel and they had to carry him up the stairs.’
“We were sometimes shooting 14 hours a day,” she added. “And Lee Marvin took me aside and he said, ‘Fonda, we’re the stars of this movie. If we let them work that many hours, we’re not the ones who’ll get hurt. It’s the crew. to stand up for the workers, for the crew, and we must refuse to work these long hours. We must stand up for the crew.” And that had never occurred to me. That was a huge lesson from Lee Marvin.”
Catherine Hepburn
The two were friends before Hepburn’s death in 2003, something Fonda amused because the iconic actress “didn’t like me.”
Fonda made 1981’s On Golden Pond with her father, Henry Fonda, and Hepburn. “It was one of the most glorious experiences of my life,” the actress shared, per Vulture. “I made the movie for my dad, but the person I learned from in the movie was Katharine Hepburn.” Hendrik Fonda died in 1982.
“All three of us were nominated for Oscars, and I didn’t win, and she did,” Fonda recalls. “And I called up Hepburn to congratulate her and she said, ‘You’ll never catch me now!'”
Fonda said Hepburn was “so interesting” because “she wanted me to keep talking about her after she was dead, and I talk about her all the time.”
Michael Douglas
An onlooker asked Fonda how she could break into the entertainment industry, and her answer led to an anecdote about Douglas, who she co-starred with in The China Syndrome.
“Don’t let the bastards get you!” she replied. “You have to be strong and stand up to them, but do it in a diplomatic way. You don’t want to make enemies. It’s all about relationships. That’s the big mistake I made. I never built relationships. Michael Douglas is good in relationship building. I don’t think he really likes me, but he’s very diplomatic.”
Lily Tomlin
It was clear that there was no real tea since Fonda confirmed that Tomlin is her favorite co-star. We could have told you that.
