Jane Fonda has never been one to hold back in her decades-long career, so why would she 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 shared her unfiltered thoughts on Hollywood and her former costars, including Robert Redford, Katharine Hepburn, Michael Douglas and others. Here are the juicy highlights.
Robert Redford
“He’s a really good person,” Fonda shared, according to Deadline. “He just has a problem with women.” The actress didn’t elaborate, but she knew her co-star well as they starred in four films together: 1966’s The huntscreen adaptation of Bare feet in the park in 1967, The Electric Rider in 1979 and 2017 Our souls at night. Fonda said she “was in love” with him during those first three films.
“He didn’t like kissing,” 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 it was not his fault: “What was I, about 80 or something. And I finally knew I had grown up. When he arrived 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’s good. “He was a great filmmaker. I take my hat off. A great filmmaker. But as a man? I’m sorry. No no.”
Lee Marvin
Fonda enjoyed doing the 1965 comedy western Cat Ballou with Marvin and learned a few things about and from his co-star.
“I loved making the movie. And Lee Marvin was fabulous,” she shared. “He was very funny. He was always drunk. We were in 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 pulled me aside and he said, ‘Fonda, we’re the stars of this movie. If we allow them to make us work that many hours, we are not the ones who are hurt. It’s the team. to defend the workers, for the crew, and we must refuse to work those long hours. We have to defend the crew. And that had never occurred to me. It was a huge lesson from Lee Marvin.”
Catherine Hepburn
The two were friends before Hepburn’s death in 2003, which amused Fonda because the iconic actress “didn’t like me.”
Fonda made 1981s On the golden pond with his father, Henry Fonda and Hepburn. “It was one of the most glorious experiences of my life,” the actress shared, per Vulture. “I did the movie for my dad, but the person I learned about in the movie was Katharine Hepburn.” Henry Fonda died in 1982.
“All three of us were nominated for Oscars, and I didn’t win, and they did,” Fonda recalled. “And I called 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 died, and I talk about her all the time”.
Michael Douglas
An audience member asked Fonda how to break into the entertainment industry and in her response it led to an anecdote about Douglas, who she starred with in The Chinese Syndrome.
“Don’t let the f***ers 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 don’t I’ve never built relationships. Michael Douglas is good at building relationships. I don’t think he really likes me, but he’s very diplomatic.
Lily Tomlin
Obviously, there was no real tea since Fonda confirmed that Tomlin was her favorite co-star. We could have told you.