Cannes Film Festival is usually one of the platforms preferred by stars to showcase their beauty and celebrate themselves. But one of the great women of the big screen, Jane Fonda, demonstrated this Friday that it is always good to fill in the blanks that fame allows her access to with material: over an hour and a half, the protagonist of Barbarella Himself a conversation in which he did not avoid any topic and he did not hesitate to fire one of the key people with whom he worked the most. “Robert Redford has a problem with women,” he told the stunned audience.
The interview took place on Friday afternoon and from the very beginning the actress admitted that she is not going to avoid any topic, no matter how personal it may seem: at the beginning of the conversation she explained that she could understand the moderator without a translator Necessity because French is a language that is not foreign to him. “One of my husbands, I’ve had three husbands, was French,” she said, referring to Roger Vadim, the director who directed her in Barbarella.
Of that iconic and sweetly futuristic film from 1968, he openly said: “I didn’t like it at all when I was making it.” And he explained: “At the beginning of the movie, I did a striptease in space. I was very shy, believe it or not, so I had to drink a lot of vodka to lose my shyness and I filmed that drunk scene.
However, when that sensuous dance left behind, an unexpected “element” forced her to go in front of the cameras again. “The next day, when we were reviewing the filmed material, we saw a bat that seemed to be flying between me and the lens all the time. And we had to do it all over again, by the time I was hungry,” He remembered.
His shyness was dealt a further blow, even deeper, when he saw the film for the first time, the day it opened. “I saw myself there, naked … Vadim promised me that my body would be covered with titles, and it was not,” she recalled. Then, she paused and mischievously reminded, “We’re not getting married anymore!” However, beyond her first impression and her reaction to the first day, Fonda revealed that over the years she has come to love the film: “Now that I watch it, I find it funny,” she said.
Consciousness
The actress, who is also a well-known activist, went back to 1965 to pinpoint the moment in which she began to understand that belonging to a Hollywood firm brought millions of benefits, but also great responsibility. That year, she and Lee Marvin were hired “at very low cost” for the film La Tigresa del Oeste.
Working conditions were very poor: the entire team was forced to work 14-hour days. “I loved filming it, because I used to ride horses and I’m a tomboy … and Lee Marvin was fantastic. He was so funny and always drunk. We were staying at the same motel and he Had to carry her up the stairs,” he revealed.
And then, he pointed out: “But, other than that, he was a very conscious person and he taught me something very important. At one point, he had a broken tooth, but he didn’t stop making films, he just taught me filmed from behind. So he pulled me aside and said, ‘Fonda, we’re the stars of this movie. If we let ourselves work long hours, it’s not us who gets hurt, it hurts the whole team. We Workers have to be protected. That was a great lesson from Lee Marvin that he was not a revolutionary. He was a fantastic drinker and a wonderful human being.”
two very different heroes
And then came one of the most powerful moments of the conference. When he reminded her of the movies she shot with Redford — The Human Pack (1966), Barefoot in the Park (1967), The Electric Horseman (1979) and Us at Night (2017) — the actress was surprised by his response: “Well, I fell in love with him.”
“I did four films with him and fell in love with him for three. Which means I had a great time,” she said. But, at the same time, she indicated there was a bigger problem: “He didn’t like kissing.”
“Also, he was always in a bad mood, and I always felt it was my fault. When we shot the last film together, I felt like I had grown up because when he left after three hours on set would come over and be in a bad mood, so I no longer feel like it was my fault. We always have a good time. He’s a very nice guy… he just has a problem with women”, she shot without giving further details. Killed.
His experience with Alain Delon, he explained, was starkly different. Together they filmed The Cage of Love in 1964. “Oh my God! How handsome he was! Not so much now… He’s had a hard life. But then, he was the most handsome man on the planet.” And she hinted: “He loved to kiss. We had good love scenes.
to poke
Fonda also highlighted the importance of Condemning My Past, the film she starred in in 1971, and revealed how she prepared to play a sex worker. “I stayed with a group of prostitutes in France for a week, but no one looked at me. No one even came to me! So, I said to Alan: ‘Let me conclude the contract. Hire Faye Dunaway. She’ll be nice: everyone wants to sleep with her.’ He just laughed,” recalled the actress.
In addition to his “field work”, Fonda decided that he needed to visit morgues to deepen his character. “There I was shown hundreds of pictures of women who had been beaten to death by men. When I shot the last scene, those women went through my head and I started crying. She was crying not because of fear, but because of sadness and fear. Half of me was on the spot and the other half was like ‘shit’. I’m becoming a feminist.’ It was so powerful,” he recalled.
being a woman in hollywood
In between conversations, Fonda reflected on female friendship and highlighted the relationship she was able to forge with Lily Tomlin—with whom she starred in the films How to Bust Your Boss (1980) and 80 for Brady (1980). 2022), and the series Grace and Frankie—, which he defined as his “favorite man I’ve worked with”. Then he added: “She is my sister and I love her more than anything.”
The actress explained that she doesn’t really feel like she’s “part of Hollywood” as many people might think based on her lineage. “I don’t go to parties. I wish I did, but they don’t always invite me,” he admitted. “I always cared about things other than my career. If I really cared about my career, I would never have done what I did, which was to leave the United States and go to France and go to Vadim’s had to live in a penthouse in Le Marais with … It was a terrible move from a career point of view.” , However, that move was one that opened the door to activism, which really gave meaning to her life.
Responding to a woman’s question about entering the industry, Fonda was blunt: “Don’t let motherfuckers get to you! You have to be strong and face them, but do it diplomatically. You don’t make enemies. Wanted. It’s about the relationship. That’s the big mistake I made: I never built a relationship. Michael Douglas is excellent at building relationships. I don’t think he likes me, but he’s very diplomatic.”
Memory of Katharine Hepburn
Fonda ended the talk with an anecdote about her father, Henry Fonda, and Katharine Hepburn, with whom she made In the Golden Lagoon in 1981. “My dad was very sick, he had a heart condition and I didn’t want him to die without us. We’re working together.” , Said. “So I bought the rights and made a film with it. We hadn’t even started thinking about who should play Ethel, and one day the phone rang in my office. ‘Greetings? I heard you are making a film called In the Golden Lagoon…’. It was Katharine Hepburn. He called us! “You can’t film it in May, the trees will turn red.” She was telling us how to make a movie,” he laughed. “Of course, we hired her. It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. I made this film for my father, but the person I learned the most from in this film was Katharine Hepburn.”
The reason Hepburn was “so interesting” was because “she wanted to be talked about after she died, and I talk about her all the time.” However, the actress is sure the veteran actress didn’t want her: “All three of us were nominated for Oscars, and I didn’t win, and she did. And I called Hepburn to congratulate her and she said, ‘You’ll never see me again!'”
