Jane Fonda is everywhere lately, often in handcuffs. The 84-year-old actress is no stranger to the spotlight. Not only has she enjoyed a decades-long Hollywood career, but she's now active in activism yet again. Jane sat down with Elle Canada in 2020, where she spoke about leveraging her fame to make a difference in the battle against the climate crisis. Her frequent arrests and stamina to continue fighting are truly inspirational to anyone looking to make a difference.
Jane is hoping that using her platform to make a difference will inspire other celebrities. She's also hoping to inspire others by being more authentic. To that end, Jane revealed that she's decided not to undergo any more plastic surgery. After struggling with self-image for decades, she's deciding instead to embrace aging and what she sees in the mirror.
Jane believes her experiences as a woman often defined by her relationships with men is something universal. In her journey to reach more people, she wants to keep it honest and share the experiences she knows many other women go through every single day.
Jane Fonda has created an incredible platform, after breathing new life into her career with her Netflix series, Grace and Frankie. Inspired by the many climate activists speaking out worldwide, especially Greta Thunberg, Jane has committed to being on the front lines of climate activism.
Jane negotiated a four-month-long leave from the show to organize her weekly protests in Washington DC. She got arrested on the steps of the Capitol week after week as part of her Fire Drill Fridays. In an interview with Elle Canada, Jane said she felt the need to "disrupt [her] comfortable life" to fight for the future.
The subject of the interview turned to Jane's incredible looks, as she was in the midst of appearances for L’Oréal Paris Age Perfect.
"They chose me not in spite of my age but because of my age," Jane shared on her website. "They are committed to the idea that beauty is not simply in the young and model-perfect but in all people regardless of ethnicity or age."
Jane burst on the scene as a model in 1959, appearing on the cover of Vogue in an image shot by Irving Penn. The daughter of the legendary Henry Fonda, she trained in acting and did stage work. When she got into acting, she cemented her place in the public eye as a sex symbol.
The only thing more controversial than her racy beginnings has been her public stances on sociopolitical issues. Jane became the center of a number of controversies during the Vietnam War era. Her beliefs, while not popular at the time, were her own. Those moments of speaking out, which many thought would end her career, instead cemented her as a figure on the front lines of activism and free thought.
Despite Jane's many interesting experiences and accomplishments, she found she was often defined by the men in her life. Her famous father was just the beginning. Her three marriages over the course of three decades also overshadowed her work on-screen and off.
In sharing her truth on these matters, Jane learned she's not alone. She also hopes other women will see it that way.
"I knew that if I really told the truth, it would be universal," she says. "All these issues are universal among women: I’m not good enough; I have to please, starting with Daddy; I’m not pretty enough; I’m not thin enough; I’m not smart enough."
In being seen through the lens of whatever man was in her life, Jane developed issues with her self-image. This is something that she's grappled with recently, as Hollywood has rarely been kind to aging actresses. Jane is determined to be her authentic self regardless.
Jane also attributes her dependence on men and masculinity to her mother's suicide when she was 12 years old.
"I grew up in the ’50s, and on top of that my mother killed herself," she noted. "So I totally identified with men, which meant rugged individualism, so it was very hard for me to overcome that."
"I can’t pretend that I’m not vain, but there isn’t going to be any more plastic surgery — I’m not going to cut myself up anymore," Jane revealed. "I have to work every day to be self-accepting; it doesn’t come easy to me."
Jane has struggled over the years, including many years struggling with bulimia.
Jane admits that her struggle with bulimia started in her childhood. She didn't have the situation under control until she was well into her 40s. "I try to make it very clear that it has been a long and continuing struggle for me," she noted.
It's these sorts of struggles that have brought Jane to her commitment to honesty, even when it isn't pretty. "I post pictures of me looking haggard — and once with my tooth out! This is a fake tooth," she said of one of her incisors. "It came out in a restaurant in Portugal, and I posted it."
Along with plastic surgery, Jane's sworn off relationships. She famously jokes that she's "closed up shop down there." Today, her female friends are her source of companionship and support through life's ups and downs.
"The people who tend to really show up for me — and whom I show up for — are my women friends."
Jane is at peace with the person she is today — mind, body, and soul. She hopes that her continued acknowledgment of her privilege and utilization of her platform can be part of a major wave of change.
"Showing up is something you have to learn — although there are certain emotional disabilities you pick up when you are young that you can’t entirely undo," she said. "I have psychic scars that I will never be able to give up. You learn to manage them. You learn to banish them to the corner and put a dunce cap on them and forbid them to come out."
