Transcript for Jane Fonda (FBF) [VIDEO]

Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.

Yes.

That's a good question, especially as you get older and your life gets busy and everything. If you want to maintain a friendship, you have to be intentional. You really have to work at it. For example, last night, I had dinner with a young Canadian film director, TV director. She directed a couple of Grayson Frankie episodes. And when she finished her last episode on Grayson Frankie, we said, let's maintain our friendship. Let's work at it. Let's be intentional.

Yeah. Well, that's the case with my friendship with Sally Fields. Sally, you wouldn't know this in real life, but she tends to be a bit reclusive. She's not one to really want to go out a lot. So, you know, especially when I lived in Atlanta, I would have to really coax her out to come to dinner with me or get together or whatever. But see, I understand her. I know that's how she is. I don't take it personally. But I go after her. I love it.

You know, I'm hesitating because most of the hardships that I've gone through in my life happened earlier in my life and earlier in my life, I never reached out for help. I considered it a big weakness. I wanted to be like a guy. You know, I don't need anybody kind of thing. But I remember I had my first hip replacement surgery. I was living in Atlanta and it didn't go well and I was in real pain and kind of hazy from anesthetics and stuff like that. And I felt somebody at my feet It felt really good and I looked down in my darkened bedroom and it was events where the playwright, vagina monologues, who's my friend and who had flown down from New York to massage my feet and make me feel better. I said, why are you here? And she said, because I love you. You know, we have to do that for our friends, but she's, you know, she's really extraordinary, a very generous, giving person, and I was just beginning to learn to, to accept help and comfort.

It was a gradual process. I'm 85 now, and I would say that it began to happen in my 40s. You see, earlier in my life, and I'm talking 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, the mark of maturity was independence. I don't need anybody. I'm grown up now. There was no recognition of interdependence. And of course, that was especially true for men. So if you were a woman who had identified with men, I don't want to be like a woman. I want to be strong. I want to be a winner. You know, like my dad. That became my motto, Trump, and it grow up and be an independent. I don't need anybody kind of a person. And that was part of the culture, but that began to change. So my change also corresponded to a broader societal change, which I'm afraid is kind of going back to the way it used to be rugged individualism. You know, I'm only going to think about me and my family. And this is a time, if ever, there was one where we have to understand, we have to work together, and that we are interdependent.

I was not an activist at all. until I met soldiers who'd been fighting in Vietnam who opened my eyes to what the Vietnam War really was. And I was just, I was horrified. I couldn't believe it. I really grew up believing, boy, if our flag is flying, if our groups are fighting, we're on the side of the angels. And so when I heard from soldiers, what was really happening? I just felt so betrayed and everything in my life changed. I worked with active duty soldiers and sailors and Marines.

I didn't even think about that. I just what I heard and they gave me a book to read that just absolutely transformed me and it was my heart that was opened up. Everything I believed was shattered, and so I had to look for new realities. I wasn't even thinking about it's controversial. It could affect my career. All I knew was this is really wrong. And there are a lot of people in my country that are standing up and trying to do something about it. I want to be with them. I don't want anymore to be a hedonistic, uninvolved, and I was not happy. You know, I was like, why am I here? People need to understand why they're on earth. Why am I alive? What am I supposed to do with this wonderful fragile life I have? So it was a great turning for me. I went from not very happy, meaningless, aimless woman to somebody who knew who I was on earth and what I was going to do.

You know, thank you very much course. The thing that was unusual or is unusual about my activism is that I didn't just give money. I was on the ground, whether it was with outside military bases, with soldiers on reservations, with tribes, indigenous tribes. I was there on the ground. My celebrity would sometimes It would create a distance between me and the people that I was working with. For example, the first time I was ever arrested, I was marching with tribes up in the Seattle region of Washington State who were claiming Fort Lawton as a cultural center in Indigenous cultural center. And we climbed over a wall and went on to the fort. And we were all arrested. They were beaten. I wasn't. There was a young woman who had her young child in her arms, and she said, well, you have a young daughter. Where's your daughter? My daughter was at home with a governess. It made me more and more uncomfortable my celebrity and my privilege separating me from the people I wanted to work with and I had a friend and Detroit. He was a founder of an organization called Revolutionary Black Lawyers. He was Ken Cockrell and I said, can I think I'm going to quit big and actor and become a full-time organizer. and he said, Fonda, don't you dare? He said, the movement has many organizers. We don't have movie stars. The movement needs you. Not only should you not quit, take your career seriously. Be more intentional about what you do. Make your movies reflect your values. Stick with that. So I did, I began to, you know, I made coming produce coming home and nine to five in a number of films.

Oh, to do whatever will please the man that I'm with. Even if it's to spite my own well-being. I would fall in love, what's wrong with that sentence, fall. No, to have a good relationship and authentic relationship, both people have to be standing on their feet and meet as full human beings. But it took me into my 60s to know that.

I was miserable. I didn't enjoy it. I kept wanting to quit. I never felt like the girl next door, but I know that I kind of looked like the girl next door. But also, I was suffering with an eating disorder. And, you know, I mentioned that because you mentioned that you have young women, are your audience. So, you know, this continues to be a problem with young women. I was, I was bulimic and arrexic. And so, you know, to suddenly, I'm becoming a starlit And there's so much emphasis on how you look. And it was a trigger constant, constant trigger for me.

Well, I've overcome the effects that it had on me. I've worked most of my life to overcome the judgmental, the objectification and judgmentalism and the unconsciously making me feel that I'm not lovable, you know, if I'm not really thin, things like that. It was a generational problem for a lot of men, my father's age. The objectification of women.

Oh sure I was determined that I was going to marry somebody that was the opposite of my father. I married three times. On the surface, they all looked the opposite of my father. But where it mattered, the ability to become intimate, really. And what does that mean, intimate? It means this is who I really am authentically. Worts and all. I'm going to be authentic with you. And I think that I chose men who weren't that way and weren't going to demand that of me. And I think that's because of my father and my relationship with him.

I mean, I stayed in them all longer than I should have.

What's very, you know, didn't have the guts to. Yeah, also not really talking things out enough, you know, if you have issues on the level of relationships, they're going to keep playing themselves out.

God, you're a genius. What? 28. I wasn't even thinking about these things. Oh, my Lord, you're so much more involved than me. I didn't start to get it till I was in my 60s. And even then, I mean, talk about stumbling and flowing on your face.

If you're smart, if you're resilient, you're that that, you know, you are then a resilient person. You can, you can pick up on what's going on and you can, you can metabolize that and not everybody can do that.

Well, you're like a supercharged. My god. You're going to, and you're going to be president.

I mean, you look, it's not that you look older, but you're so evolved for 20 years. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, one thing that I always want to say to young people, it is so hard to be young. Don't let anybody fool you. It gets easier when you get older, believe it or not. I mean, assuming a modicum of good health, but it's really young. It's really hard to be young. It's like, who, what am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to know? What am I supposed to become? What am I supposed to be interested in? All these huge questions that will determine the whole rest of your life. As you get older, it's like, I know what I need. I know what I can let go of. I've been there before didn't kill me. I've been on the survive. You know, you don't make mountains out of mole hills and it's just, it's just easier. So, well, I mean, it seems to me that young people should care about, is there going to be a future that is going to be livable? Or are we going to go to, you know, from one climate extreme that is life-threatening, even to people who are wealthy and privileged, although it's going to hit the un-privileged and not white people worse, it's your future that's at stake. There is a climate crisis and the window to do something about it is closing. We don't have a lot of time, but There's ample reason to remain hopeful, the scientists who all agree that there's a crisis, and that it's caused by fossil fuels, and that people have to act. They're unanimous, and they're telling us time is running out, but you still have time to reverse this and do something about it. So the first, I would advise young people just to find out about the climate crisis. I'm sure that you want to do something about it. That means not individually. It's good to do individual things because it makes you feel good and makes you feel like you're not a hypocrite. But we have to change systems. We have to change who we elect to government. We have people in the government that are Democrats, as well as Republicans, who take money from the fossil fuel industry and vote against bills that can save your lives in the future. So we have to get rid of those people, and they're not all guys, but they're mostly guys, and they're mostly white. Yeah, so we have to pay attention to who we vote for. We have to vote. But become familiar with the climate crisis and join with others in some organization to do something about it in your town and your city and your school and your university. There's all different levels that you can work on. And I think that it feels good. And the young people that I've met doing this kind of work are so wonderful. You'll make new friends.

Well, man, I have worked at it for 50 years.

Oh, in my 20s I was starting to be a movie actor. I suffered from bulimia very, very bad. I leave, I let a secret life. I was very, very unhappy. I assumed I wouldn't live past 30, I'm 85. I don't understand. Well, I worked hard. I didn't go out, I didn't hardly date, I hardly, because I was, I was unhappy and I had the seating disorder. And, um, and then I was also making movies that I didn't very much like. And then the Vietnam War got me and changed my life.

Yes.

Well, first of all, you've got to understand. It seems so innocent in the beginning, so innocuous. Why can't I have this ice cream and cake? And then I'll just throw it up. What you don't realize is it becomes a terrible addiction. That takes over your life. And it harms the way you look. You end up looking tired. It becomes impossible to have an authentic relationship when you're doing this secretly. Your day becomes organized around getting food and then eating it, which requires that you're by yourself and that no one knows what you're doing. It's a very lonely thing and you're addicted, I mean you can't If you put any food in you, you want to get rid of it. And it happens when your life is inauthentic, when what you should be doing and who you should be or who you really are, those things are being betrayed. You know, maybe a false relationship or where you're faking it. You know, you know, that it's wrong, but you keep going. That kind of thing. Inauthenticity can cause it. Also being told that you're fat. And it can start with that. But then it takes over your life. And so as I got older, you know you can you can think you can get away with it when you're young because your body is so young as you get older The toll that it takes on you, it becomes worse and worse. It takes days and then at least a week to get over one single binge. And it's not just the fatigue, it's you become angry, you become hostile. All the trouble that I got in was because of that anger and that hostility. And then it got to a point in my 40s when I just thought, if I keep on like this, I'm going to die. I certainly will not. I was living a very full life. I had children, I had a husband. I'd had two husbands by then. I was doing political work. I was doing all these things. And my life was important. But I was becoming less and less able to continue it. So I went culture. I didn't realize that there were groups that you could join. I didn't know anything about that. Yeah. And nobody talked about it. I didn't even know there was a word for it. And so I just went cold turkey and it was really hard. But the fact is that the more distance you can put between you and the last binge, then the better it is. It becomes easier and easier. Now they say you can never get cured. That's not true. But I did need prosak. That was my the drug that helped me because a lot of the cause of it was anxiety driven and prosak helped me deal with anxiety. And so and then gradually I just stopped doing it.

I'm scared for them. There was no social media when I was younger. I think it makes it much worse and it's really hard. I don't know what the cure is. It's bigger than I can.

I think the old consciousness raising group is good. We can't do it by ourselves as individuals. I think getting together with other young people, whoever is listening, whatever age you are, you may not be young, but with other females to talk about it. And when you recognize the shared challenge that you're all facing, it helps to say, well, fuck this, I'm not going to do this anymore. And then you start to become a feminist. But yeah, I think talking about it is good, knowing that you're not alone and that that you can work up courage by dealing with it together as a group. I'm going to teach you a little history. In the 1970s, a huge change happened to psychology, psychologists, and therapists. The thinking in psychology was that what Freud said was, against women is maybe one in a million. It's a fantasy that women have for various reasons. But it's one in a million Freud, one in a million. And that was the thinking coming into the 70s. So these feminist therapists began to meet regularly in various places in New England. And they began to talk about the experiences that they were having with their clients. And one said, you know, she was incested. And another would say, I have a client that was incested. And they started to discover that this was, this was not one of them. This was like epidemic. What is going on here? They began to reach out to other therapists around the country who began to meet and they all found out they discovered that this is extremely common and the kind of therapy that they developed was very different than Freud where you lie on your back and look at the ceiling while the Freudian therapist sits behind you. These women created relational therapy. And it's like it's the difference between men's friendship and women's friendship, men's side by side, women's sit facing each other and relate emotionally. So therapists would be able to look into their client's eyes, would cry with them, would show empathy and emotion with them. And the women began to heal. They discovered that it's What happens when your abuse is especially insisted is your ability to trust and relate is ruptured and recreating trust and the ability to relate through relational therapy could help heal these women. And so again, the reason I told that story was because it's such a great, when you get together in groups, you learn new things and it changes everything.

Well, two of them are my real-life friend groups, really, and Lily. I mean, Sally and I identify with each other quite a lot. And we talk a lot. We get down and we talk about these kinds of things. And I've always identified with her. You know, we're quite in many ways very close. Lily is a completely different person for me and I'm fascinated by her. Absolutely fascinated. We'll be sitting side by side and someone will come up and say something serious and Lily will find a way to respond that is a laugh. I mean she's just, I can't do that. I'm just in awe of it.

Oh, yeah, very much. Right. That's why I keep doing it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you guys are, we've made two movies since we stopped Grayson Frankie.

Your health. You know, there was a study done by Harvard Medical School that said that not having women friends is as bad for your health as smoking. And, you know, men sit side by side looking outward at cars, at women. Oh, wow, look at that one. Sports. Women look into each other's eyes, and they ask for help. They show their vulnerability. That's so important. That's important for health. It's, I think, as one reason why women on average live five years, seven years longer than men do. Also, when women laugh, I don't know about you, but when I'm with my women friends and we laugh, I mean, you got to crush your legs. Yeah, it's, it's, it comes from the belly. I don't laugh like that with men. And, and I know that there are men that I, but I, but I, they're, they haven't come in my way.

It's a real problem to, but it's one that I've been guilty of when you fall in love and everything is so intense that you don't have time for your girlfriends anymore. But what that does, especially if it's a relationship that's ongoing, is it accustomed the guy, if you're heterosexual, the guy, to you not taking time to be with girlfriends. Like if this relationship lasts and you end up getting married or staying together, you're going to want your girlfriends, but you can't, and then you have to re-educate your partner to accept the presence of girlfriends. So make it a part of your life even in the beginning.

Well, I've mostly been married three times, or had steady boyfriends in between, up until a certain later point of my life. I thought that if I wasn't with an alpha male that I, nobody would be interested in me. So I married. I didn't ghost.

And I don't know if anybody's ghosted me. I'm sure they have, but I can't. I don't know.

Honey, there's not going to be if a guy. I, you know, I live in a new house. Well, I've been there for seven years. And when I moved in like a lot of California houses, there was a man's bathroom and a women's bathroom. I said, no, no, no, no, no. There will never be a man living in this house ever. So they took both bathrooms from me. Damn right. No, I have to reason off. My father was married five times. I don't want to go that way. Right.

My knees got started to give away. I'm not kidding. He came into my trailer. Holy shit. And my knees started to buckle. I was standing next to the sink, so I held on. But no, and that's when he signed this jersey that I'm wearing and gave it to me. He gave it to everybody, but anyway. No, it's, you know, it's twofold. He's a goat. He's the greatest of all time. When somebody is that good at what they do, he's like magic. You have to bow down, but then on top of it he's so gorgeous, you know? And so I was just overwhelmed and he was so sweet. Very generous, very nice.

Well, you are a fantastic interviewer. I mean, I've been at this for 60 years. You're one of the best interviewers I've ever had. You're really wonderful.

You're also beautiful. I mean, I don't know. Is this, is this podcast visual? Or visual? So people know what you look like. And people know what you like. I just want your audience too. You know, because sometimes they're, you know, they're only video audio. Right. So you want to give a disclaimer. And so you want to say to the, I want you to know audience. She's gorgeous.