“The most exciting new young actor I’ve ever worked with”: The actor Jane Fonda called amazingly talented
Anyone who spends anywhere near as much time at the top of the industry as Jane Fonda is going to have a better gauge of talent than most, especially when she was so determined to strike out on her own and carve out a legacy independent from her equally-iconic father.
One of the original second-generation nepo babies in Hollywood, the aspiring actor viewed her status as the daughter of the legendary Henry Fonda as both a blessing and a curse. It got her foot further in the door than many of her peers, but at the same time it inspired her to work twice as hard to establish her own worth.
Needless to say, that’s precisely what she did over a legendary career that saw her seize destiny by the horns during a turbulent time away from the bright lights of cinema, leading to a storied stint in the spotlight that yielded two Academy Awards, a pair of Baftas, a Primetime Emmy, and eight Golden Globes.
When Fonda made a point of singling out a rising star has having the potential to become a modern great, it was an opinion that carried a whole lot of weight. As it turned out, she was right on the money when the subject of her glowing appraisal would go on to accomplish exactly what she thought he would, a matter of years after they co-starred in Shawn Levy’s underwhelming 2014 dramedy This Is Where I Leave You.
“Adam Driver is the most exciting new young actor I’ve ever worked with. I am a fan of Girls and now a huge fan of his,” she told Atlanta Magazine. “He’s doing Star Wars right now. He’s going to become a huge star. He’s amazingly talented.” Yep, Fonda was bang on here, with no less an authority than Martin Scorsese going on to brand the not-yet Kylo Ren as the finest talent of his generation.
When they worked together, Driver was still best known for his supporting role in Lena Dunham’s Girls, although the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis was an encouraging sign of things to come. Fast forward a decade, and he’s firmly regarded as among the most naturally gifted and reliably excellent thespians in the industry.
In the years since This Is Where I Leave You, Driver has delivered countless knockout performances and worked with such illustrious filmmakers as Scorsese, Noah Baumbach, Steven Soderbergh, Terry Gilliam, Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, and Francis Ford Coppola.
It’s best to ignore that time he fought dinosaurs in a sci-fi action flick, but for the most part, Fonda couldn’t have been more right in predicting a bright future for an actor who was still a relatively unknown quantity in 2014.
