Always reinventing at 80, Jane Fonda says, "I feel better than ever": NPR

About 20 years ago, on the occasion of her 60th birthday, Jane Fonda asked her daughter's help to create a very short video about her life. His daughter suggested: "Why not bring a chameleon on the screen?"

"Ouch," Fonda said, recalling the conversation. "She knew what buttons to push and she was not wrong."

Fonda has lived many lives. From the starlet to the fitness guru to the Vietnamese protester – now 80, she is a comedic actress, performing roles at an age when many Hollywood would have left. screen.

Filmmaker Susan Lacy tells Fonda's story in a new HBO documentary titled Jane Fonda in Five Acts. The first four acts are organized around the men of Fonda's life – his father and his three husbands. The last one is Fonda.

Fonda acknowledges that she's redefined again and again, but says her courage has been a constant. "I've always been brave," she says. "There was a certain integrity and it was always there despite my will and my talent to become what my husbands wanted me to be."

Lacy describes the documentary as a portrait. Fonda – who only saw the movie after it's complete – says it's a "genre trip".

Fonda says to each stage of his life: Am I all I can be? "One of the things I hope people will take out of my documentary is the value of a life examined," she says. "You do not become wise by having a lot of experience, you become wise thinking deeply about the experiences you have experienced."

"I'm almost 81 years old and I feel better than ever," she adds. "I know it sounds absurd, but it's true."

Highlights of the interview

To be a "late defender"

Until the sixties, I never thought that relations should be democratic. I had never seen a democratic relationship between a man and a woman. Certainly my father who was married five times – none of his relationships were democratic. So I just thought it was the way things are supposed to be. I tried to do everything I could to be sure that the men I was with – all brilliant and fascinating – loved me.

I was a pleasure and it took me in my 60s and 70s to start saying: I deserve respect. I am someone on my own and I am going to start defining my own life. [It] It took a lot of time, but we live a lot longer than our parents and grandparents on average. So, it's not bad to be a late defender.

On not regretting his marriages

You must own your mistakes and you must learn from them. And although my three marriages did not last, I do not regret any of them. I learned a lot from the three remarkable men to whom I was married. And I think I had to go through there to finish where I am.

On his father, actor Henry Fonda – and why she decided to do something unexpected during the filming of 1981 On the pond of gold

He hated emotion – emotion terrified him, which is rather interesting in an actor. He always wanted to do things exactly as they had been repeated. And so when we were playing this scene, I waited until what I thought was going to be his last close up, then I did something we had not repeated. … I reached out and I touched his arm and he dodged his head and he raised his hand to cover his eyes. … I saw his eyes well and that meant the world to me. All the public sees that he turns away and bends his head and covers his eyes. It was a big problem for me. … I cry whenever I see it … it was so hard for me to do it.

By learning to accept the relationship she had with her father

One of the great things about aging – if you took the trouble to look at your life and determine who your parents were and who your grandparents were – you realize that's not the case. that he does not like me – he did not know how to express it. … but he did his best.

On his complicated relationship with his own daughter

I studied parenting … and I understood what good parenting looked like. I did not know that when I became a parent, I did not know what to do. But I know now that it's never too late. I think my daughter and I are getting closer. I took her from her home to Vermont to be with me in California and I showed her the documentary … she's not there – she chose not to attend – and I did not want to not that she publicly sees it. I wanted her to be with me and – phew! – she liked that. She thought it was really very well done. She cried a lot. It was therefore a huge blessing for me.

On the redesign of the 1980 film 9 to 5

We have writers working on a script for a sequel with a very funny premise and I hope this will happen. The problems in women's offices today are even more serious than they were the day we made the original. … Sexual harassment does not diminish in the offices. But today, many people occupying all kinds of jobs – not just office workers – are not beholden to the boss. They are hired by another company and then subcontracted to the company where they work. So, if they are fired because of a pregnancy, a theft of salary or sexual harassment, who do they go to? … I mean that it is only a disaster for more and more workers. And we want to try to hit all that and still be very funny.

On his "final act"

Final acts are really important – just as they are in the theater. … Since 2002, I've spent a lot of time … determining what I want to do with my final act. … I did not want to finish my life with much regret when it was too late to do anything. … It is important to face death, to accept and understand it, because you can then prepare yourself. I visualize my death and I want to have people I love around me – which means that by then I have to deserve to have people around me who love me.

Marc Rivers and Emily Kopp produced and edited this interview for the broadcast. Beth Novey has adapted it for the Web.