HOLLYWOOD -- Movies have always been a part of Jane Fonda's life. She is the daughter of legendary screen star Henry Fonda and made her film debut at age 22 in the 1960 romantic comedy Tall Story.
Over the next three decades Fonda would make 40 more films, win two Oscars and be nominated for five more.
Then, in 1990 after the release of Stanley & Iris, the romantic drama she made with Robert DeNiro, Fonda announced her retirement from film.
The following year, she married her third husband, media czar Ted Turner.
They divorced in 2001 and, last year, Fonda signed to star opposite Jennifer Lopez in the comedy Monster-in-Law, which opens Friday.
The Sun sat down with Fonda recently to discuss her return to film as well as her best-selling autobiography My Life So Far.
THE SUN: Have you been itching to do a film for a while now?
FONDA: No. I wanted to see if I could have fun acting again, which I hadn't on those last few films I did 15 years ago. I'm not hoping to create a new career, but I would like to have fun on a film set a few more times at least.
THE SUN: Over those 15 years, did people try to coax you back?
FONDA: Not that much, really. There may have been a few calls.
THE SUN: Had you put the word out that you didn't want to act any more? Was that the reason?
FONDA: There was a wall. Definitely. I really had no intention of acting again and I didn't miss it. I am a huge fan of movies, so I went to all the big films over the years. I loved many of the performances by my contemporaries, but I never wished it was me.
In Monster-in-Law, Fonda plays a domineering, scheming mother who does not want her only son (Michael Vartan) to marry a woman (Jennifer Lopez) she considers beneath him socially and financially.
THE SUN: What was it about Monster-in-Law that made you say yes?
FONDA: I've never done a role this wild and over-the-top and I've never played an outright villain like this. I thought it would be great fun.
THE SUN: What made you think you could do this role?
FONDA: I've spent 10 years with Ted Turner. I've learned how to be over-the-top.
THE SUN: Were you apprehensive about doing a movie with Jennifer Lopez?
FONDA: Apprehensive, no, but a bit nervous. I didn't know what she'd be like. I didn't know whether she'd be some kind of diva, which she wasn't. At the same time, I was really excited at the thought of working with a hip, young director like Robert Luketic. I really want to know what the young people in the industry think like.
THE SUN: What has changed the most on movie sets since your last film?
FONDA: They now have this thing called a video village where the director sits, instead of right behind the camera with the cinematographer. Now you get to go back and see an instant replay of the scene you did. It's amazing. The other thing is that half our crew was in rehab. That was really different.
Fonda's autobiography My Life So Far is a candid look at her stormy relationship with her father, the suicide of her mother, her political activism and her three marriages.
THE SUN: Do you regret not having had a longer relationship with any of your husbands?
FONDA: I certainly wish I'd been dealt the cards that would have enabled me to choose right for the long haul. I am so moved by watching people who are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversaries. I love the way they look at each other, hold hands and dance. I wish I'd had that, but it wasn't in the cards for me.
THE SUN: You and Ted Turner seemed to be such a perfect couple and you speak so lovingly of him in your book.
FONDA: I speak lovingly of all three of my husbands because they deserve it. They were all great guys. I really loved Ted. We had so much in common.
THE SUN: Is there a chance of a reconciliation?
FONDA: No. No. I would be there with him in a minute if he needed me. I'm really close to him and his children. His grandchildren call me grandma.
THE SUN: Then why no reconciliation?
FONDA: It's easier to answer that by explaining what it is I wish for in a man.
THE SUN: And what's that?
FONDA: I would love it, at some point before the end, that I could experience what it is like to be with a man who loves all of me and for whom I don't have to pretend to be perfect. I just wonder what that feels like.
THE SUN: You've never had a relationship with a much younger man. Could that be the answer?
FONDA: It's difficult to find a younger man with the emotional stuff I need. It takes some water under the bridge for that. When you're young, you like young skin, and I like young skin, so it would be a major problem. It's not going to happen.
THE SUN: You had affairs before and between your marriages. What have you learned about men?
FONDA: That I love them. I really do love men. I realize that men have been as damaged by social paradigm known as patriarchy.
THE SUN: In what way?
FONDA: They cut themselves off from their hearts in order to be what they feel society sees as real men. It's essential that men have a new definition of manhood where they don't have to be emotionally illiterate to feel they are real men.
THE SUN: What do you feel is the first step?
FONDA: A man had to bring his whole self to the table. He can't leave the parts he thinks aren't good enough behind.
THE SUN: What's your biggest regret in your marriages?
FONDA: That I wasn't a better mother, especially to my daughter (Vanessa Vadim), my first-born.
THE SUN: Why was that?
FONDA: Like my own mother, I didn't know how to be a mother. If I could go back and change just one thing, it would be my relationship with Vanessa.
UN-FONDA MEMORIES
There is one chapter of her life that still haunts Jane Fonda.
In 1972, Fonda visited Vietnam to see first hand the ravages of a war that was taking its toll on American soldiers as well as Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.
She made 10 radio broadcasts urging American soldiers to cease bombing villages and had her picture taken on a Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun.
"If I had to do it over again, I would never have taken that picture. It amounts to the biggest single mistake I've made in my life," says Fonda. "It was the largest lapse of judgment that I can imagine."
Over the past decade, she has addressed numerous veterans associations to apologize for the insensitivity of such an act.
At a recent book signing in Kansas for her autobiography My Life So Far, a man spit tobacco juice in her face, calling her a traitor. Michael Smith, 54, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
Fonda and her second husband, Tom Hayden, led numerous anti-war rallies in America before her infamous trip to Vietnam, which earned her the title 'Hanoi Jane.'
"I am not sorry I opposed the Vietnam war, but I am sincerely sorry I took that picture.
"It was as if I was thumbing my nose at the American military. I care deeply about our soldiers."
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