The role Jane Fonda will always regret turning down: “Can you believe that?”
Even though it wasn’t until the late 1960s that Jane Fonda became a superstar, household name, anti-establishment icon while simultaneously announcing herself as a generational talent, she’d already turned down a major role in a five-time Academy Award-winning classic by that point.
The daughter of the legendary Henry Fonda had extra weight and pressure placed on her shoulders given her esteemed lineage, but it quickly became clear that she was a formidable performer in her own right after she made her screen debut in 1960’s romantic comedy Tall Story.
It was the period between 1968 and 1971 that she cracked the A-list, though, with her sex symbol status being secured via the title role in camp classic Barbarella, before her next feature They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? landed her on the ‘Best Actress’ shortlist at the Oscars for the first time, and the one after that saw her take home the trophy when she blew everybody away in Klute.
Not that she was struggling to find work beforehand, even if Fonda ended up harbouring lifelong regrets that she’d knocked back the opportunity to work with one of the industry’s most distinguished directors in an epic literary adaptation that ended up as the second highest-grossing release of 1965 behind only The Sound of Music.
When quizzed by Ellen DeGeneres on whether there were any parts she passed on that turned out to be a mistake in hindsight, Fonda wasted little time in offering her definitive answer. “Doctor Zhivago,” she said. “I was asked and I turned it down. Can you believe that?”
Although she doesn’t specifically name which role she was offered, it’s reasonable to assume that it was female lead Lara Antipova. After all, Fonda and Julie Christie were born less than two and a half years apart, and they were both among the most popular, consistently acclaimed, and in-demand actors of their shared era, racking up box office success and awards season recognition like it was nobody’s business throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Not many rising stars would turn down the chance to work with David Lean, either, but there must have been something about Doctor Zhivago that left her fancy completely un-tickled. When production began in December 1964, Fonda only had eight feature-length credits under her belt, so declining the chance to collaborate with one of Hollywood’s foremost directors on a sweeping romantic epic that was about as close to a guaranteed smash hit as it got is something of a head-scratcher.
On the other hand, it would be an understatement to say Fonda did just fine without having Doctor Zhivago on her filmic CV, with the actor going on to enjoy one of the most decorated careers of anyone to grace the silver screen.
