 |
NEW YORK -- Now that Bridget Fonda has built a strong career for herself, reflecting on her famed family heritage comes much easier.
Talking about family is something she used to resist doing for fear she wouldn't be taken seriously as an artist. But while promoting her latest movie, Touch, the young Fonda took some time out to share some of her favorite memories of her late grandfather Henry Fonda.
"I remember him at his house. He was a Renaissance man," says Fonda.
"He was a real artist -- his painting was beautiful -- and he kept bees. And he used to have an orchard where he'd put bottles over the fruit so they'd grow into the bottle.
"He had chickens and fish ponds -- he had all those lovely things that, for a grandkid, is just a dream come true," recalls Fonda, 32.
"He was very quiet and I was very shy, so that was good. My brother was much pushier-- I would just tag along and watch."
In Touch, Fonda plays a former assistant to a crooked evangelist (Christopher Walken). Walken wants to exploit a miracle worker who experiences stigmata -- bleeding from marks which correspond to Christ's wounds during the Crucifixion.
As Walken's reluctant accomplice, Fonda offers some of her strongest work to date.
And she credits her grandfather for helping give her insight into acting.
"I remember asking him once about his painting.
"He told me something -- which is actually very much for acting -- that you start with the sheerest wash of color and water and you keep building on top of it and you get depth.
"That's one of my fondest memories of him."
When Fonda gets lonely for her grandpa, she only has to go as far as her video library.
"I'm a big fan of his, I really love his work.
"I own as many of his movies as I can," she says.
Fonda's own collection of work keeps on growing.
Along with Touch, the star of Singles, Point of No Return, City Hall, Single White Female and It Could Happen to You has just completed working on the HBO project In the Gloaming, directed by Christopher Reeve.
"He's a great director -- it probably helped that he'd acted for so many years," Fonda says about the now-paralysed Reeve, who broke his neck in a riding accident almost two years ago.
"He knew exactly what to say to me and he gave me the key to my character.
"He is an amazing example of what the human spirit is capable of," she says.
"I found myself every day going to work -- and you can't complain.
"What Chris has to put out to be part of this is amazing. He's incredibly strong and you forget (about his condition) -- you don't even think about it," she explains.
Reeve is not the only object of Fonda's high praise.
She recently filmed a TV documentary about dolphins, in which she spent a lot of time with the mammals.
Having the opportunity to be environmentally "responsible" without being radical, also appealed to her.
"That was one of the great adventures, if not the greatest adventure, of my life to date.
"It took me to Peru and up the Amazon. I was swimming with the dolphins and it was unbelievable."
Fonda's next great adventure is to co-star in Graceland, in which Harvey Keitel plays a man "who might or might not be Elvis Presley" and she plays a Marilyn Monroe impersonator who meets him on the road.
When quizzed about her costuming, the slight and non-voluptuous actress laughs: "I intend to pad!"