EXCLUSIVE: Jane Fonda speaks like a woman used to having her voice heard.
It’s huskier now than when she uttered her first lines in Tall Story in 1960, or when she thanked the Academy for her Best Actress Oscars in 1972 and 1979, and it has lost none of the steel forged over decades as an actress and activist.
Listening to her talk, it’s hard to believe there was a time when women like Fonda were silenced.
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For generations, actresses were told – explicitly or implicitly – that their beauty and talent had an expiration date and, once it arrived, they would be expected to fade quietly into the background.
It’s one of the few roles Fonda, now 87, refused to play.
“A lot of older women, including me, have really tried to examine our lives and that’s what brings wisdom,” she tells 9honey sagely.
“And that’s the wonderful thing about welcoming older women into the entertainment space on all levels, in front of and behind the camera.”
Fonda views herself as an “elder” among Hollywood’s female population and it’s a position she’s grateful to hold because it lets her help the next generation of actresses, directors and screenwriters find their place in an industry that hasn’t always been kind.
It certainly wasn’t kind to Fonda, at times.
She’s spoken before about experiencing sexism, harassment and even assault in Hollywood, and confesses to 9honey that she struggled silently with an eating disorder for years in her early career.
Fonda knew women in Hollywood – herself included – deserved better, so she made it happen.
She campaigned for feminist causes through the 1970s, helped establish the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee (HWPC) in 1984, co-founded the Women’s Media Center in 2001, and has been championing women in entertainment ever since.
In 2025, she’s glad to see all those years of advocacy pay off.
“This shift to including women’s voices, women of all ages and races–- as directors, as producers, as writers, as as actors – this is really, really, really important,” Fonda says.
“Because women see life differently. They’re affected differently by everything – by bankruptcy, by war, by violence, by famine, by the climate crisis – it impacts women differently.
“And so if women’s voices are left out audiences only receive half the story.”
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All the celebs you might not have realised are nepo babies
While some may deem it divisive, it’s Fonda opinion that women born into some of Hollywood’s most famous families also deserve to be part of that story.
After all, was she not one of the first “nepo babies”?
Born to actor Henry Fonda and socialite Frances Ford Seymour, Fonda is the first to admit that her surname opened doors for her when she first started acting; she even starred in her first stage production alongside her father.
“To rise above the crowd is very hard. The truly, brilliantly skilled people will rise but … it’s a given that [having a famous relative] helps,” she says.
You do wonder if people hire you just because of who your mother or father is, or resent you because of it
“People notice you and say, ‘Let’s take a look at what Henry Fonda’s daughter can do.'”
But coming from a famous family doesn’t guarantee success and Fonda admits she grappled with the implications of her “nepo baby” status on a “deeply personal level” at the start of her career.
Desperate to prove she was hired in her first films for more than just her surname, she took twice as many classes and “worked twice as hard” to perfect her craft, to prove she was more than her father’s legacy.
“You do wonder if people hire you just because of who your mother or father is, or resent you because of it,” Fonda says.
“I wanted to show that I wasn’t just another ‘nepo baby'”.
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Now, with more than 50 films, two Oscars, eight Golden Globes and an Emmy under her belt, it’s safe to say she succeeded in creating her own legacy – and not just on the screen.
Fonda’s work as an activist is just as significant as her work in front of the camera, from protesting the Vietnam war, to supporting the Black Panthers and the US civil rights movement, and speaking out as an LGBTQIA+ ally.
What she did for each cause was important, but it wasn’t always well-received.
Fonda has been arrested multiple times in relation to protests and activism, and she was surveilled by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) between 1967 and 1973.
“In spite of the controversy, in spite of the attacks – and they were fast and furious for a certain period of time, it was pretty intense – I wouldn’t go back for anything,” she says.
WATCH: Jane Fonda arrested at a 2019 climate crisis protest in the US
Even her iconic workout tapes from the 1980s were created to serve her work as an activist.
The actress took up aerobics in 1979 after fracturing her foot on the set of The China Syndrome and had the idea to record a workout tape to raise cash for a political organisation she’d started with then-husband Tom Hayden soon after.
“We needed money, and there was a recession, and so I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to start a workout business,'” Fonda says, adding she “never expected it to take off the way it did”.
Her first exercise video, Jane Fonda’s Workout, was released in 1982 and the profits helped fund the Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED), which she and Hayden created to fight for women’s rights, labor rights, rent control, renewable energy, and anti-war initiatives in California.
It sparked more tapes, which went on to sell more than 17 million copies and make Fonda a fortune, most of which she invested into CED or her own political interests.
More than 40 years after she filmed that first workout video, Fonda’s as dedicated to activism and her physical wellbeing as ever.
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“The only thing that’s different is I do everything slowly. With with age, you need to,” she says with a laugh.
Her lifelong passion for physical, mental and emotional health inspired her partnership with supplement brand Wanderlust and she will be visiting Australia this June for two special events hosted by the brand.
There she will share her wisdom forged over years in Hollywood, her perspective on health at every age and, perhaps, a few of her secrets to living such a long, fulfilling life.
For now, all she will tell 9honey is this: “If I’m happy at 87, a lot of it has to do with the fact that I live a purpose-driven life.”
Wanderlust True North Presents In Conversation with Jane Fonda in Melbourne on June 12 and Sydney on June 15. Tickets and more information available here.
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