The “Kafkaesque nightmare” that made Jane Fonda want to quit acting
Before Jane Fonda was known for being an Oscar winner, a fearless activist, and a home workout video star instructing a nation of women how to get the perfect abs, buns, and thighs, the budding actor found making a name for herself in the film industry rather challenging.
She might’ve been the daughter of Hollywood icon Henry Fonda, but she didn’t initially have the confidence you might expect from a nepo baby, harnessing many insecurities and a lack of belief in her talents. Fonda wasn’t even sure if she wanted to be an actor, having grown up witnessing the hardships that came with working under the spotlight from her father’s point of view.
In a way, before Fonda could ever dream of Hollywood success, her father shattered the illusion for her. He didn’t do so on purpose, of course, but the young Fonda couldn’t help noticing how his job affected his sense of self, telling Oprah’s Master Class, “I never wanted to be an actress because my father never seemed to bring joy home when he came home from work. It was always problems. He wasn’t satisfied with this, or this isn’t [right]. No joy.”
Clearly, acting isn’t for those who easily feel self-conscious and insecure – and if you’ve got perfectionistic tendencies, well, good luck. Yet, with both her father and her brother, Peter, involved in the industry, it was only a matter of time before she gave in and abandoned her pursuit of art studies in France to immerse herself in the world of acting.
While she was excited to enter this new world of performing and working with other stars, her first experience of shooting a film made her question if she’d made the right decision. After studying acting under Lee Strasberg, Fonda began to hone the necessary skills to be a true star, with the legendary acting coach recognising major potential in her. Thus, by 1960, she’d landed a role opposite Anthony Perkins in the movie Tall Story, directed by Joshua Logan. Unfortunately for Fonda, it was not a success, and she detailed the “Kafkaesque nightmare” of working on the movie in her book My Life So Far.
“I was unable to rediscover the excitement I had experienced acting in Strasberg’s classes. I didn’t know how to use what I had learned there to make my cheerleader character more than one-dimensional. And the camera felt like my enemy. Standing before it, I felt as though I were falling off a cliff with no net under me.
“All the things I feared most in myself — that I was boring, untalented, and plain — came to the fore during the filming of Tall Story. When it was done, I returned to New York, vowing I would never go back to moviemaking,” she wrote.
Luckily, Fonda didn’t give up, and she appeared in the film Walk on the Wild Side two years later, receiving acclaim for her performance. Why did Fonda change her mind about acting? Your guess is as good as mine, although it seems as though she came to her senses, realising that you can’t simply walk away from something you’re passionate about just because your first attempt wasn’t great.
Within a few years, Fonda was one of the most well-known and acclaimed actors of her generation, and if she’d walked away from Hollywood after Tall Story, she never would have racked up two Oscar wins (and five other nominations) alongside the countless other awards she has come to collect over the decades.
