Jane Fonda delivered a powerful speech urging people to “be brave” and “stay in community” as she accepted a Lifetime Achievement award the SAG Awards on Sunday (23.02.25).
Jane Fonda delivered a powerful speech urging people to “be brave” and “stay in community” at the SAG Awards on Sunday (23.02.25).
The 87-year-old actress was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles and reflected on how Hollywood banded together amid McCarthyism in the late 1950s and called for those in the industry to unite once again to “resist successfully” the current hostile political climate.
She said: “I’m a big believer in unions. They have our backs, they bring us into community and they give us power. Community means power and this is really important right now. Workers power is being attacked and community is being weakened, but SAG-AFTRA is different to most other unions because us, the workers, we actors, we don’t manufacture anything . What we create is empathy. Our job is to understand another human being so profoundly that we can touch their souls. We know why they do what they do. We feel their joy and their pain…
“A whole lot of people are going to be really hurt by what is happening and coming our way and even if they are of a different political persuasion, we need to call on our empathy and not judge, but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent because we are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what is coming at us.
“I made my first movie in 1958, it was the tail end of McCarthyism when so many careers were destroyed. Today it is helpful to remember that Hollywood resisted. Overseas, brave American producers hired blacklisted writers… They had a radio show on ABC Radio called Hollywood fights back. Members of the committee included every big name actor in town.
“Have any of you ever watched a documentary about one of the great movements, like aartheid or civil rights or stonewall and asked yourself, would you have been brave enough to walk the bridge? Would you have been brave enough to take the hoses and batons and the dogs?
“We don’t have to wonder any more because we are in our documentary moment, this is it. And it’s not a rehearsal. This is it, and we mustn’t for a moment kid ourselves about what is happening.
“This is big time serious folks, so let’s be brave. We must not isolate, we must stay in community, we must help the vulnerable and find ways to project an inspiring vision of the future. One that is beckoning and welcoming. That will help people believe that on the other side there will still be love, there will still be beauty. And there will be an ocean of truth for us to swim in. Lets make it so.”
Earlier in her speech, Jane – who was given the award by Julia Louis-Dreyfus – reflected on her “weird” career and joked she’ll be doing her “own stunts” in her 90s.
She said: “This means the world to me, you can’t know. Thank you SAG-AFTRA. And your enthusiasm makes this seem, I don’t know, less like a twilight of my life and more like a ‘go girl, kick ass — which is good because I’m not done.’
“I have had a really weird career, totally unstrageic. I retired for 15 years then came back at 65 which is not usual, I made one of my most successful movies in my 80s and probably in my 90s I’ll be doing my own stunts in an action movie.
“Have you ever heard the phrase, it’s ok to be a late bloomer as long as you don’t miss the flower show. I’m a late bloomer, this is the flower show.”
SAG Awards: Jane Fonda gives powerful Lifetime Achievement award speech
