Jane Fonda Reflects On The Shockingly Sexist Incident That Sparked Her Acting Career

Jane Fonda says she stumbled into acting after being fired for an unsettling reason.

The activist and Oscar winner told People that, despite her father being actor Henry Fonda, she initially had no interest in pursuing the profession.

“He never brought joy home,” Jane said of her dad after a day of work on set. “I never felt he got joy — I believe that he did, actually — but it never manifested when he came home. So it was not like, ‘Oh my god, I want what he’s got.’ No.”

Jane went on to explain that even if she had the desire to act, she didn’t feel like she was cut out for it.

“I didn’t think I had talent. I didn’t think I was pretty enough. I had a lot of body dysmorphia,” she said, later adding, “I was pretty lost as a young person.”

So, Jane decided to get an office job, which, oddly enough, ultimately led her to acting.

“I got fired as a secretary because I wouldn’t sleep with my boss,” she said. “I didn’t know what else I could do, and I became friends with Susan Strasberg, daughter of the famous acting coach, Lee Strasberg.

“And she told me that I should try to do an interview with him and maybe he would accept me into his class. And I did, and he did. And then he told me I had talent. Nobody had ever said that to me, so that kind of did it.”

Jane went on to appear in films like 1965’s Cat Ballou, 1967’s Barefoot In The Park and 1968’s Barbarella. The last of these films turned Jane into a bona fide sex symbol, but the Grace And Frankie star has expressed having pretty “complicated feelings” towards Barbarella.

She told Glamour in May 2022 that she felt conflicted about the plot and found it a “bit objectifying of me and women”. 

Jane told Vanity Fair in 2022 that she only did Barbarella because her husband at the time, the film’s director Roger Vadim, wanted her to do it — and she was pretty passive in their relationship.

“If he didn’t want me to do a particular movie, I wouldn’t do it,” Jane said. “I was pretty much doing whatever the men in my life wanted me to do.”

Jane admitted to People in their recent cover story there was a reason why she felt so little autonomy at that time.

“Being young is really hard. Don’t let anyone kid you,” she told the magazine. “I wish when I was younger, someone had said to me, ‘Don’t give up. Keep going. It’ll get better.’”