Jane Fonda says Les Moonves ouster is ‘only the beginning’
Jane Fonda believes the downfall of Leslie Moonveswon’t be the last we’ll see among powerful entertainment industry executives.
“It’s a shame he didn’t behave, [but now] it’s come back to get him,” Fonda said at Thursday night’s Los Angeles premiere of the HBO documentary “Jane Fonda in Five Acts” at the Armand Hammer Museum.
Moonves departed on Sunday amid a cascade of sexual assault and misconduct allegations.
“This has been happening for a long time and it’s been an epidemic of behavior like this on the part of people who have power,” Fonda said. “I think the #MeToo movement has started an avalanche. And it’s only the beginning.”
Fonda also said she wasn’t surprised when Robert Redford recently announced he was retiring from acting by revealing that his new drama, “The Old Man & the Gun,” would likely be the last time audiences will see him on the big screen.
Fonda said she’s known of Redford’s intentions since they collaborated two years ago on the romantic drama “Our Souls at Night.”
“He told me that when we were making our last movie together that he was going to be packing it in,” she recalled.
Meanwhile, Fonda’s son, fellow actor Troy Garity, said his mother is utterly fearless.
“It’s a line between fearlessness and stupidity,” he mused. “My mom will get an instinct that resonates true within herself and she acts on it. If she thinks there’s an unjust war that will harm people she cares about it, she’ll throw her body into it to stop it. If she feels that she has been betrayed by society’s values by inheriting a negative perception about what she looks like, she’s going to fix that by diving head first into fitness.”
Directed by Susan Lacy, “Jane Fonda in Five Acts” premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival and will air on HBO on Sept. 24. Lacy is working on another documentary, but could not provide any details.