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Features
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A Monster Return
As Jane Fonda is the first to admit, part of the credit for her movie’s triumphant weekend box office performance should go to the person she based her character on: Ted Turner.
Monday, May 16, 2005
By Todd Gilchrist
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Christina Radish / Agency Photos
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Fonda and son at L.A. premiere
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Although Jane Fonda began her career in 1960s with sex kitten roles in movies like Walk on the Wild Side and Barbarella, she soon proved to be far more than someone akin throwaway talent that these genre pictures usually favor. Over the four subsequent decades, she successfully re-invented herself as a political activist, a fitness guru and, most recently, a writer and spokesperson for all women with the ‘disease to please,’ managing in between iterations of persona to star in some of the moviemaking business’ most venerated classics.
Returning to the silver screen after a fifteen-year hiatus, Fonda is the reason Monster-in-Law guffawed its way to an estimated $24 million this weekend at the box office. As the maniacal and titular matriarch determined to keep her son (Michael Vartan) away from the clutches of one Charlotte (Jennifer Lopez), Fonda gleefully embraces the over the top nature of her character Viola Fields. But in reality, the actress recently told FilmStew that returning to a set after such a long time proved to be a surprisingly emotional experience.
"The moving day was the first day that I was actually in front of a camera after 15 years," she explains with as much energy as a starlet half her age. "[It] was the costume and make-up test that everybody does. Before the camera rolled for the first test, [director] Robert Luketic just got everybody quiet and said, ‘Welcome back Ms. Fonda,’ and I cried I was so moved."
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Christina Radish / Agency Photos
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The newly relaxed J. Lo
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Fonda’s early screen work includes the romantic comedy progenitor Barefoot in the Park, opposite Robert Redford, as well as The Shoot Horses, Don’t They? with director Sidney Pollack; in the ‘70s, she worked with Jean-Luc Godard on Tout Va Bien, Donald Sutherland on Klute, and Hal Ashby on Coming Home, winning two acting Oscars in the process; the ‘80s saw collaborations with her father Henry in On Golden Pond and a still-credible Robert De Niro in Stanley and Iris.
But the actress says that her break from Hollywood was not due to the simple fact that she’d already all but done everything possible within filmmaking’s four walls. "It had become agony," she confesses. "I was not happy inside as a woman and I was kind of in denial about it and sort of cut off from my emotions. I was living on will power and it’s very hard to be creative when you’re living on will power, and my last two or three movies were just agony and I said I don’t want to be scared anymore."
She says that respite from fear came in the form of her third husband. "Then I met Ted Turner and I didn’t have to [act]," she explains. "When Ted and I split up, I spent five years writing my autobiography. For 15 years, I’ve been under the radar, extremely happy, didn’t miss it at all, and then this character was offered to me.”
“I’ve never played anybody like her and [it was] just, ‘What a hoot. I’m so different than I was 15 years ago; I’m not living in my head anymore; ;et me see if this can be a joyful experience again.’ And it was."
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Christina Radish / Agency Photos
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Director Robert Luketic
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Fonda admits that she based the controlling, bipolar Viola upon someone from her past: "My favorite ex-husband, Ted Turner," she says with a laugh. "I know that may sound really weird, but I had the privilege of spending ten years with Ted Turner and talk about over the top, outrageous, I mean every day with Ted is like, ‘Oh my God I can’t believe he just said that or did that.’”
“He’s the only person I know who’s had to apologize more than I have," she reveals candidly. "He is an absolute hoot and he is outrageous and he lacks any self-censorship. At the same time, he’s extremely lovable and I had never known anyone like him, so when I got an opportunity to play Viola, it was like I had permission to be over the top because I knew what that could look like."
"I don’t mean to say that because it’s called Monster-in-Law that he’s a monster," she corrects. "I’m crazy about the man- absolutely adore him and we’re close friends. It’s like, just go all the way, hit for the fences."
The actress also observes that despite this belated career renaissance, she has no illusions about what the future might hold. "Hollywood is not so friendly to older women,” she cautions. “I’ve had my career; I’m not looking to recreate a career.”
“If I get an opportunity to play fun characters again from time to time that would be great,” she continues. “But I’m kind of relieved that I’m at a point where, ‘Hey, if you want me fine. If you don’t, fine. I don’t care.’ It’s not who I am."
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Christina Radish / Agency Photos
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Co-star Wanda Sykes
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That said, she marvels at the possibility this could be a new beginning for her career, acting or otherwise. "Isn’t it great at 67 somebody says is this only the beginning? I love it. I love it." Answering to the possibility for future films, she adds, "Who knows…I don’t know."
Never wont for a strong opinion, Fonda points to some of industry changes that initially took her aback upon her return to the acting profession. "I’ll tell you one big difference that I hate," she begins. "Fifteen years ago and more, you could make a movie and it would have a couple of weeks to get some life and get some legs and word of mouth. Young actors would start to get noticed, it would have time.”
“Nowadays, if you don’t make it that first weekend, you’re toast,” adds Fonda in advance of her picture’s prophetic performance. “That’s so scary, and it doesn’t give young actors a chance to build a following."
"When I stopped making movies 15 years ago, there weren’t even cell phones,” she continues. “There were no digital cameras, there no video villages, you know, none of this. We had [press] junkets, but this is like a well-oiled machine. Everything is a lot slicker."
However, when asked how a potential remake of her classic, sexy, sci-fi adventure Barbarella might look dolled up with modern-day special effects, she replies earnestly, "What’s CGI?"
"When I look at that movie now,” she muses, “which I do with great enjoyment, the charm of Barbarella was the jerry-rigged quality of it. We didn’t have any of that stuff. The angels flying, I write a whole scene about that in the book. Nobody had ever flown without wires. That was what was fun about it."
Though she recalls the details of her acting and activist experiences with fond remembrance, Fonda says that she chose to reveal the ins and outs of a very public life to achieve some semblance of closure on those chapters, and hopefully, begin new ones. "My life has been open to the public and judged for many, many decades," she admits. "I wrote the book because I have come to some understanding in my life and what the themes are, and I knew that if I wrote it honestly that it would help people.”
"I thought if the book is going to resonate with people, this is where I have to go, and that’s a very transformative thing," she adds. "I wrote my book in three acts. The third act began at 60 and that act is called ‘Beginning,’ because that’s what it feels like."
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