Jane Fonda delivers inspiring speech at SAG Awards: 'Empathy is not weak or woke'
Jane Fonda delivered a rousing speech when accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award at the SAG Awards Sunday night.
The 87-year-old actress said the honor "means the world to me" and assured her fans and colleagues "I'm not done."
In her speech, Fonda looked back on her "totally unstrategic" career.
"I retired for 15 years and then I came back at 65, which is not usual. And 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. "It's OK to be a late bloomer as long as you don't miss the flower show."
"This is the flower show," she continued, placing her hand on her statuette. "I love acting. 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."
Fonda reflected on growing up in the '40s and '50s "when women weren't supposed to have opinions and not get angry."
"Acting gave me a chance to play angry women with opinions which is, you know, a bit of a stretch for me," she joked.
Fonda spoke about her support of unions, saying she's "a big believer" in them.
"They have our backs, they bring us into community and they give us power. Community means power," she explained. "And this is really important right now when workers' power is being attacked and community is being weakened."
Fonda said SAG-AFTRA is different from other unions because its members don't "manufacture anything tangible."
"What we create is empathy," she noted.
The actress then spoke about the job of actors being able to "understand and empathize with the traumatized person you're playing," citing her Oscar-winning role in "Klute" and Sebastian Stan's portrayal of Donald Trump in "The Apprentice".
"Make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke," she said firmly. "And, by the way, 'woke' just means you give a damn about other people."
Fonda, a climate change activist and critic of President Trump, said "we are in our documentary moment right now" in reference to the political divide in the country.
"A whole lot of people are going to be really hurt by what is happening, what is coming our way. And even if they're 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 going to need a big tent to resist, successfully, what's coming at us," she said.
"So let's be brave," she concluded. "We must not isolate. We must stay in community. We must help the vulnerable. We must find ways to project an inspiring vision of the future -- one that is beckoning, welcoming."
