Jane Fonda appeared to make a dig at President Donald Trump in her SAG Life Achievement Award speech.
The legendary actress from New York was awarded with the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award on Sunday (February 22), with the likes of Mikey Madison, Timotheé Chalamet and Selena Gomez all in attendance.
Fonda has never been shy about politics, as she was a controversial figure in the 1960s, supporting the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panthers as well as protesting the Vietnam War as a political activist, earning her the nickname ‘Hanoi Jane’.
And the 87-year-old took the opportunity during her acceptance speech to address the current political climate in the US.
Jane Fonda was awarded the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award on Sunday (Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)
When accepting the award, the actor said it ‘means the world to me’.
“Thank you SAG AFTRA. Your enthusiasm makes this seem less like a late twilight of my life, and more like a go girl, kick a**. Which is good because I’m not done.” Fonda continued.
After referring to key events like Stonewall and the March on Selma, she said: “We are in our documentary moment. This is it, and it’s not a rehearsal.”
Though she didn’t directly refer to Trump, Fonda instead spoke about Sebastian Stan’s portrayal of him in 2024’s The Apprentice, adding: “Though you may hate the behavior of your character, you have to understand and empathize with the traumatized person you’re playing.”
She continued to defend ‘wokeness’ in her speech, saying: “Empathy is not weak or ‘woke.’ And, by the way, ‘woke’ just means you give a damn about other people.
“A whole lot of people are going to be hurt by what’s happening, by what’s coming our way,” she continued.”‘We are going to need a big tent to resist what’s coming at us.”
Fonda appeared to make reference to Donald Trump in her speech (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“And even if they are of a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge, but listen from our hearts, and welcome them into our tent. Because we are gonna need a big tent to resist successfully what’s coming at us.”
The Barbarella star also reflected on her unusual career in acting which she said has been ‘really weird’ and ‘totally unstrategic.’
“I retired for 15 years and then I came back at 65 which is not usual, and then 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.” she said.
She then went onto to talk about her love of acting, adding: “We get to open people’s minds to new ideas, take them beyond what they understand of the world and help them laugh when things are tough, like now.
“And for a woman like me who grew up in the ’40s and ’50s when women weren’t supposed to have opinions and get angry, acting gave me a chance to play angry women with opinions, which, you know, is a bit of a stretch for me.”
