Jane Fonda names the actors “at the very top of brilliance”
The 1960s was a defining decade for cinema. As Hollywood censorship began to ease, American filmmakers followed in the footsteps of their European counterparts and began to include more graphic, explicit content in their work. This coincided with the sexual revolution, which saw many young women embrace sexual freedom for the first time.
Subsequently, certain female actors came to embody this new idea of femininity, such as Jane Fonda. Born the daughter of Henry Fonda, it would have been more shocking if the young Fonda hadn’t also become an actor, beginning her career on the stage in the 1950s. However, she soon started landing film roles, quickly becoming a ‘60s sex symbol. Appearing in movies like Cat Ballou and Joy House, as well as many movies made by the provocative French director Roger Vadim – The Game Is Over, Barbarella and Circle of Love – Fonda became an icon.
As she became more interested in feminism and left-wing politics, Fonda appeared in movies like Klute, which earned the actor her first ‘Best Actress’ win at the Academy Awards. Giving a brilliantly nuanced performance as the call girl Bree Daniels, Fonda proved herself to be one of the best actors of her generation.
Since then, she has appeared in an eclectic selection of movies, ranging from Jean-Luc Godard’s Tout Va Bien to Mark Rydell’s On Golden Pond. She has become a source of inspiration for many other actors, several of whom she also greatly admires. In an interview with Harvard Business Review, Fonda listed some of her favourites, explaining, “There is a group of actresses that I think are at the very top of brilliance.”
She listed Meryl Streep, Annette Bening and Nicole Kidman, adding, “There are lots of others, but those are the ones I bow down to for their capacity to embody the human being they are portraying. It’s no longer acting. They become the person.”
While Fonda has met all of the actors she listed above, she has only worked with Streep, starring alongside her in the 1977 work Julia, which was the latter’s film debut. Fonda became somewhat of a mentor to Streep when she was just starting out. At the AFI Lifetime Achievement Ceremony, Streep praised Fonda, describing her as having “this almost feral alertness, like this bright blue attentiveness to everything that was around her that was completely intimidating — and made me feel like I was lumpy and from New Jersey, which… I am.”
Streep also revealed that Fonda helped advise her on which subsequent roles to take, adding that she “open[ed] probably more doors than I probably even know about.” Under the guidance of Fonda, Streep has become one of the most successful actors in the world, landing an Oscar for Kramer vs. Kramer just a few years after starring in Julia.
