Jane Fonda may be 87, but she’s not about to slow down any time soon.
The two-time Oscar winner, who received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award at the 2025 SAG Awards, said she saw the honor and the enthusiastic reception she received from the Hollywood stars in the audience, who gave her a standing ovation, as more of a “go-girl kick-ass” form of encouragement instead of something being given to someone toward the end of their life.
“Which is good because I’m not done,” Fonda said.
During her speech, Fonda looked back on her “really weird” acting career — including roles in Klute, Coming Home, Barbarella, 9 to 5, Grace and Frankie, Monster in Law, The Newsroom, 80 for Brady and Book Club and its sequel — and expressed support for the opportunities given to her onscreen.
“Acting gave me a chance to play angry women with opinions,” she said of the early days of her career when having such a persona offscreen wasn’t seen as acceptable. “I’m a big believer in unions — they have our backs. They bring us into community and they give us power. Community means power. This is really important right now when workers’ power is being attacked and community is being weakened.”
Then, as presenter Julia Louis-Dreyfus indicated when she said it was hard to separate Fonda’s work as an actress from her activism, Fonda segued into how the empathy that actors use in their craft should inform their response to the current political climate.
“A whole lot of people are going to be hurt by what is happening, by what is coming our way,” Fonda said without mentioning specific policies, issues or people she was referring to as being responsible for this “serious” threat. “We need to listen with our hearts and not judge. We are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what is coming at us.”
And she took a moment to note, amid the Trump administration’s frequent opposition to “woke” initiatives, that “empathy is not weak or woke, and, by the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people.” That remark earned Fonda some of her loudest applause and cheers.
Fonda went on to wonder aloud if her fellow actors had watched documentaries about significant social movements and wondered if they would’ve participated in the activism.
“We are in our documentary moment. This is it, and it’s not a rehearsal,” she said. “And we mustn’t for a moment kid ourselves about what is happening. This is big-time serious. … We must not isolate. We must stay in community. We must help the vulnerable. We must find ways to project an inspiring view of the future.”
Earlier, Louis-Dreyfus highlighted Fonda’s 65-year career, taking a moment to repeat and marvel at that longevity.
Calling Fonda “daring, controversial, truthful,” Louis-Dreyfus also poked fun at her ongoing vigor.
“She never stops. I’m telling you it’s freaky and it’s exhausting,” Louis-Dreyfus said. “The woman is 87, for the love of God, slow down, Jane, you’re all making us look like shit!”
Fonda’s activism notably includes work on gender equality, civil rights and environmental justice, including her Fire Drill Fridays protests designed to address the climate crisis, an issue that she’s been particularly outspoken about in recent years.
In a 2023 Hollywood Reporter cover story, Fonda said she doesn’t devote much attention to her own legacy.
“I’m not scared of dying. I think I’m telling the truth when I say that,” she said. “But I am really scared of getting to the end with a lot of regrets when it’s too late to do anything. And when you figure that out, it instructs the way you live between now and the end.”
And friend Sally Field said she sensed “an urgency” with Fonda, who had a brief battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2022.
“She’s always felt most alive as an activist. But I feel it even more lately,” Field said. “She feels an urgency to do all that she can while she’s still here on earth.”
And longtime friend Lily Tomlin, whom Fonda presented with the Life Achievement Award in 2017, added, “She saw so many things in the world and she said, ‘I can make them better.’ That was her mantra. ‘I can make it better.’ When she throws herself into something, you’ve got the whole deal, baby. That’s it. Jane’s not pulling back on anything.”
The Life Achievement Award is SAG-AFTRA’s highest honor, given to people who foster “the finest ideals of the acting profession,” the union says.
Announcing Fonda as the recipient of this year’s award, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said in a statement, “Jane Fonda is a trailblazer and an extraordinary talent; a dynamic force who has shaped the landscape of entertainment, advocacy and culture with unwavering passion. We honor Jane not only for her artistic brilliance but for the profound legacy of activism and empowerment she has created. Her fearless honesty has been an inspiration to me and many others in our industry.”
The 2025 SAG Awards, hosted by Kristen Bell, streamed live Sunday night on Netflix from Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium.
