Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Jane Fonda

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Actress and activist Jane Fonda feels so, really deeply happy and excited to be sitting opposite Conan for a conversation. Jane sits down with Conan to discuss all the ways in which the world has changed around us since she was growing up, connecting with her father Henry Fonda and how his films influenced her activism, touring Appalachia with Dolly Parton, and more. Plus - Conan issues a very positive State of the Podcast address. Join Jane Fonda in her climate work at www.janepac.com

I'm Jane Fonda, and I'm telling you, I am so really deeply happy and excited to be sitting opposite Conan for a conversation. I'm a huge fan. Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walking blues, brand new friends, books and pens, I can tell that we are going to be friends. I can tell that we are going to be friends. Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, joined as always by Sonam of Sessian. Hutt, hello.

What, Hutt? You said Hutt. Sometimes you say it, and I don't know if you're expecting me to say hi, if you're just saying, Sona's here, that's it. Just follow my lead, you know? I don't know what your lead is, that's my problem, I have no idea. What were you, you said Hutt? You played football in response.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Anyway, we got Sona who's, I don't know what's wrong with her, and Matt Gurley, I have a better diagnosis for you, but we'll get into that later. Hike! You know, often we just start talking occasionally before we start a podcast and say, let's stop and let's just think what we should talk about, okay? Well, you say that every time, but then we...

Okay, I say it, and then we don't, you guys say, oh, don't do that, and we just start talking and it works out. Today, I said, hey, what should we talk about? And I was looking to Sona and to Matt when suddenly, Aaron Blair, who's sitting in the corner, like a golem, what was your suggestion? Let's hear it again. Can I... No, no, no.

Okay. First, try and recreate what your suggestion was, because you said it and the three of us immediately blasted you. What I said was, it was quiet in the studio. Everybody was thinking of an idea. No, that's not you telling the idea. That's what you said. Here's what I said.

I'm the director here. All right, go ahead. I will set the scene, okay? Okay. I will set the scene. I'm looking to Matt and to Sona, wondering, anybody have anything like maybe Sona, you know, your father and his crazy mustache caught fire, you know, at the Armenian cookout, or maybe Matt, you know, you were strolling the avenue in Pasadena and the fez you bought

at an auction blew away, something fun like that, you know, or your collection of, you know, Eleanor Roosevelt stamps got lost and you didn't know where they were. It's fine. But then that's what I'm looking for when suddenly Blaze distinctive voice pipes up and says, what? Everybody in LA is always bringing in fruit from their fruit trees. Conan, do you have any fruit trees? That was your suggestion.

Everyone brings in fruit from their fruit trees here at the office. Conan, do you have said fruit? And we leaped, we just leapt upon you. I didn't feel bad, but even I leapt on you. Me too. We were all like, what the fuck? What are you talking about? And then you doubled down.

That's the part that amazes me. Rather than just shrinking into the corner, okay, and deciding not to speak for a year and abstain from all sexual activity, you crept back up to the mic and went, but a lot of people do have fruit. And I was like, you're doubling down? No, you said like so-and-so brought in limes. Gina brought in limes. Gina brought in limes.

Oh, now you're on this side? Well, I was talking about bringing in lemons from my tree. Incredible. This is a chance for the listener to see how my job is the, I'm the goalie, and there's so much terribleness that comes flying around here. I'm with you. Although now that I think of it, we have a lot of kumquats on our tree. All right.

Thank you. See, there's a lot going on. How about any of this stuff? A lot of oranges, too, on one of my trees. Grapefruits. But today, Tak was saying the guavas aren't coming in. And so he was like, does it skip a season? I don't know if fruit trees work like that.

I'm just, the whole point of this introduction was for me to explain how I'm trying to protect the listener from this kind of banality, this- You have a pomegranate tree. I have a pomegranate tree, yes, because I- Here we go. Through a reception for you and Tak, Tachycesian. It's just Tak. That's not his last name.

I think it's Tachycesian. But anyway, I threw a wedding reception for you guys, and your parents very nicely gifted me with a pomegranate tree, which I happen to know has great meaning in the Armenian world. Yeah. It means prosperity and fertility, and I think it means- Well, guess what? Since we planted that tree, my life has gone to shit. That tree is a blight.

My teeth fell out. Beckett has turned his back on- My son turned his back on me and will not speak. That's not the tree. Crow's perch on my head whenever I go outside. It's not the tree. No, it's not the tree. I know, and I do keep a lot of crow food in my hair.

Can I say another thing? I just got a text from David Hopping. Yeah. There's a guy in your system who said, someone should remind Conan we have a lemon tree here in the backyard here. So we have a fruit tree here. All right. Get David in here.

Get David. David Hopping. David Hopping. Do we need- Get a pomegranate tree here. Do we need- David Hopping. David Hopping.

Please come to see the principle. Paging David Hopping. Adam Sacks, who is supposed to be the guru, the know-it-all. He's in the corner. He's saying, like, yes, we also have- what did you- trying to- Here in the backyard, we have a lemon tree and a pomegranate tree. Pomegranate. Yeah, up until today, because it's coming down.

That's why we're all so fertile. All right. David Hopping. Yeah. Jump on, please. Well, I mean, it was after we bought this building that we had babies. That's true. Yeah.

Oh, my God. David Hopping. Yeah. You're supposed to be my assistant. You're listening to all this outside- Yeah. In the office building, and you decide to send a message to play? Yeah.

Where is he? He's the guy over there dressed like a lemon. Didn't you see that I was trying to stop all this fruit talk? Why did you add to it? I just thought that you should know that you contribute to the fruit. Oh, you're just as guilty. You're just as guilty. You have a whole tree.

I took two of them last week. Wait, you took some of my fruit without asking me? You didn't even know you had it. I know, but now that I have it, it's robbery. Okay. Sheer theft. I think that we all deserve lemons from that tree. First of all, I have too many lemons.

There's a little tiny yard behind our building. I don't go back there at all because apparently there's sunlight there too. Like any good vampire, I must hide. But it's nice that we have fruit tree, but you have to pay me for that fruit. No. Yeah. What is the cost these days of a lemon or a lime? Wait, what do you think the cost of a lemon or a lime?

Oh, it's just going to be one of those traps that I'm an out-of-touch celebrity. Yes. I want to know the running price for a lime would be about $65. Okay. Now, in my defense, I shop at Whole Foods. Sing. Not far off. Yeah.

Yeah. Buy fruit there. You got to bring someone to co-sign the loan. No one laughed at that. Not even to be nice. Can we add laughter to that? No, of course not. I think what we'll do, if anything, is just put like an older woman sobbing on a street corner.

That's just kind of it. I always like crickets. I always think that just drives me crazy. Crickets is the universal language of something so far. Well, listen, this was a... What a terrible intro. But you know what? To Blaze Defense, he was like, talk about the fruit trees, and then we actually did talk

about the fruit trees. It worked. Right. So what you're saying is that Blaze Quip bore fruit. That's what you're saying. Jesus Christ. Flores para los muertos. Flores para los muertos.

I mean, have you seen the prices of a cantaloupe when you go to... Dios mío. I mean, Whole Foods. What the hell? Jesus Christ. The other day I saw Bill Gates walking out of there. He said, it's highway robbery. Mi bambina.

I bought a strawberry, I put it in my will for my daughter to get. This is all jokes about how expensive it is, and Whole Foods. These are good jokes. Who's that voice, though? It starts on me being a comedian who's also having a stroke. Okay. You got a little Dennis Miller in there, cha-cha, but also I'm just a guy that came up in the clubs.

And if you've been to Whole Foods lately, let me tell you something. You better bring a brakes truck if you want to get in the great. You're verging on Stephen Hawke. I love it. I love this guy so much. This guy's funny, and he's really bringing life to the podcast. Because he's got a real funny take about Whole Foods being expensive. The hand movement.

I'm dying. I love this guy. It's such a belabored speaking. Yeah, you're having so much trouble talking. I love it. Yesterday I had a bump at Whole Foods on Onion, and now my son can't go to college. Now it's Popeye. I am who I am.

I'm perfect for emotional Dennis Miller, but also I'm having a stroke and my head's sick. Oh my God. I was worried your head was going to be like a scanner's explosion. Trust me, it will. Oh man. Well, man. Time to get into it. My guess today is an academy.

Okay. Oh no. You never know when he's going to come back. He's got such a good take on Whole Foods. Never heard that joke. But also I love that this person won an academy award. This is an icon. I know.

This is one of the biggest icons we've ever had on the podcast. I know she's a legend. I'm told she's leaving now on Helicopter. I hope this guy interviews her. Hey, Jane, how's it going? What if Jane Punnister told a great story about like, well my father had an onion, you ever bend a Whole Foods chain? Geez, you do, you better bring.

You're a countin' with ya. My guess today is an academy award-winning actress and activist who started on the hit Netflix series Grace and Frankie. Now you can see her in two new movies, 80 for Brady Out Now and Moving On in theaters March 17th. We're thrilled and excited that she is with us today. Jane Fonda, welcome. When I was a young lad, my dad took me to a movie theater

that was showing sort of a revival house. It was Coolidge Corner in Brookline, Massachusetts. Brookline. Brookline Mass and I went there and I saw Cat Blue. Oh. And fell in love with you. Oh, good. Felt completely head over heels in love with you.

Oh, I like that. Oh, and then, well, then it just, then I mean, I think I didn't see. Let's just stop there. It doesn't get better than that. Well, it does because then I think, I know this isn't chronological, but I was seeing these films a little later on. I saw Barefoot in the Park and I remembered thinking that's who I want to marry. I want to marry Jane Fonda because I saw you as this newlywed Barefoot in the Park

and I just... Are you about to propose? Yes. Yes, I am. I have a ring. I've talked it over with my wife. And by the way, my wife, if I called her up and I said, I'm leaving you for another woman and it's Jane Fonda,

she would say, go for it. Because she adores you as well. And I could become one of those women who has a husband that could be her son. Well, yeah, I suppose. I suppose that's... No, you could be my son. Yeah, cool. You know, whatever.

That's cool. I think that's cool. Sharon's doing it. Whatever you can get. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I'm sure I'll disappoint you in many ways, but let's not even get into that. I love tall men.

And I didn't really realize for a long time how tall you are. How tall are you? I'm 6'4". Oh, God, it's beautiful. This is happening. This is happening right now. Someone sent out for some wine. Eduardo, get some wine in here.

Prosecco. Prosecco, something. You got it. Oh, my God, I'm just in heaven, but I don't know. Can I say I am so happy for you that you are doing this podcast and not having to do a show. Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's liberating. It is liberating.

It gives you a life. You don't have to worry about hair. It's great. I almost didn't bring my way into this. I almost didn't do it. You know, it's funny to say that because you came on The Late Night Show one time and you were terrific. It's 2014, but we couldn't talk like this. No.

There's a bed and there's, I mean, there's an audience and I loved doing that and I did it for almost 30 years, but what I've loved about this is I knew that you were coming in and I was excited because I thought there's so much we can talk about and in an intimate environment. You know, and I think if I had told you how much I loved you and wanted to marry you as a child in front of an audience, you know, someone's going to intervene. Someone's going to step in the way and say, but here, no one. We should have.

You should have. We should have. I know. But thank you. I'm honored that you felt that way. Well, feel that way. There's so much to talk about. I was mentioning to you just as you walked in, I used to live on a street called Tigertale.

And there was an older gentleman that lived on Tigertale when I first moved there about, I want to say, 12 years ago. And this old gentleman said, you know, when I first moved to Tigertale, I used to see, you know, Jane Fonda riding up this road on a horse on her way back from school. And I thought poor old man, he's lost his mind. No. I used to ride a horse to school. It wasn't my horse.

It was the school's horse. Was it painted yellow? And they had a little stop sign that came out. They would loan it out to a few of us who were good riders. Wow. So you would ride home. And this is here in Los Angeles on the west side. I'd ride down Tigertale Road, down Kenter to San Vicente.

And what is now that centerpiece that has those huge coral trees, that was the trolley tracks. That's right. And it was also a bridal path. And I could ride that down to school, which was on the corner of San Vicente and 26th Street. That's unbelievable. I know.

And so you were basically growing up in Los Angeles in almost a, but it could have been 1855, the way you were getting to school. Yeah. So you just didn't pay attention to the cars that were coming, but you know, it's wonderful to have been alive in the late 30s and 40s. The world had only 2 billion people and that affected every nook and cranny of life. There were more birds. There were more empty spaces that a boy or a girl could explore and play in.

I mean, we lived at the end of a dirt road at that time. I mean, you can't, there's so many houses where we used to live now. I can't even hardly find it, but where you live is a canyon in front of the nine acres where we had a farmhouse. It's unbelievable. You had nine acres up there and now it's all been developed. There's about 20 houses on that. As we talked about before the show started, you know, it's the first house that you live

in is the one in your dreams, right? And so I dreamt that house, that land at the top of a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean during the Second World War. When we used to have member, well, no, you don't remember. It was the Second World War had started and there were blackouts and we had to, you know, hide under tables during air raid drills and things like that. And so that's very much in my dream, you know, and now I can't find it. I will find out where the house was and my promise to you is I will find a way to buy

all those homes, raise them to the ground, and I will restore your ranch where the two of you will live. And we're going to get married. Actually, no, I don't want to get married again. See, my dad was married five times, I've only been married three times and I don't want to add to that. So we'll live in sin. This is the greatest day of my life.

This is the best day I've ever had in my life. I'm so delighted. Yeah, Jay Fonda can be your side piece, so you could still be married to Liza, oh, okay. Call Liza, you deal with it. Oh man. So now you're my assistant, you deal with it. I don't know. Call Liza.

I'm going out on a limb here. I assume that you're married and Liza is your wife? Yes, yes, you are. Yeah, you're going way out on a limb. But yeah, 21 years we've been married. Yeah. Okay, well, maybe I won't call her. Maybe we could do a threesome.

Oh, God. He's just short circuiting. Non-sexual threesome. Why non-sexual? What's happening? He's short circuiting. I'm blacking out. I can't handle this anymore.

I just can't handle it anymore. Sure you can. Okay. Okay, yes I can. You know what's funny is that we've glossed over the fact that you're talking about growing up, your father, of course, Henry Fondo, one of the great golden age film stars of all time, and it was very important for you. You wanted to get work, but you didn't want it to be because Henry Fonda was your dad.

And so that was a, I mean, that's, feels like it might have been the first struggle is how do I, how do I establish my own career? I'm sure you were very proud of your dad, but how do I find my own way? Was that, I mean, was that, was that difficult to do in the, in the early years? Well, if you, if you weighed the difficult or the easy, I think it made it easier to be Henry Fonda's daughter in the beginning because it, you know, it lifts you a little bit above the crowd. Sure.

Open some doors. Yeah. I mean, you know, every now and then there'd be like Patty Chayefsky interviewed me for a part in a play and he started off by saying, well, what else have you done besides being Henry Fonda's daughter, you know, that kind of thing, but, you know, you just expect that to happen. So that, you know, it's more good than it is bad. Right.

It's shocking to me, not shocking, but I was surprised to find out some of your activism stemmed from this feeling you got from your, from your dad. From his movies. From his movies. Right. A number of years ago, one of Martin Luther King, Yolanda King, Martin Luther, one of his daughters called me to talk about something or other. And I was in the process of writing my memoir.

And so I was curious. And I said to her, Yolanda, did your dad, Dr. King, did he, you know, like take you on his lap and bounce you on his knees and talk about values, you know, the kind of values and stuff like that. She said, no, he never did. And I said, yeah, my dad never did either, but you had your dad's sermons and I had my dad's films. He didn't really need to say much.

You know, I loved him and admired him so much. And I knew that the movies like Young A. Blinken and Grapes of Wrath and Twelve Angry Men and Wrong Man, those kind of movies were the ones that he really loved and was proud of doing. And he loved those characters. And so those are the movies that I identified with. And it was like putting fertilizer on my little soul. And eventually, you know, when, when there was something that triggered, which for me was the Vietnam War, all of that became fertile ground for activism.

Yeah. Your dad, in so many of his films, and I'm thinking specifically when he's in Grapes of Wrath, that speech he gives about the little guy and that's me, I'll be there. I'll be there. That is such, that's a speech that resonates maybe more now or at least as much as it did during the Great Depression. You know, there's a lot of people out there that feel that, that they're being bullied, that they're being pushed around.

And there's so many Henry Fonda films where the core idea is you have to stand up for the little guy. Yeah. Justice, fairness. Yeah. There were no people of color around me when I was growing up on the West Coast in California. But there was my father's film, The Oxbow Incident, which was about a racist hanging. You know, that's, it meant so much to me.

That's a generation, whether it's Dr. King or Henry Fonda or even my father. People were not raised, I don't think men were raised back then to show a lot of emotion. No, they were shown told not to. Yeah. Well, today still, still our culture says, if you want to be a man, you don't cry, you don't express need. There's a wonderful movie. It's one of the nominated movies, it's Best Foreign Films.

It's called Close. I haven't seen it. It's about this issue of boys in the beginning when they're young. They love on each other. They hug each other. They sleep together. They cuddle. They fall asleep on each other's shoulders.

And then they start going to a school, you know, they reach adolescence and it's suddenly, are you queer? Yeah. Kind of thing. Yeah. And they get ashamed. And then they pull back. And it's like a loss of humanity that happens because of our culture that says men aren't

supposed to be vulnerable and express emotions. It's so sad. You know, part of what I want to do is change that. Well, I think you've done, I mean, for example, I thought it was very brave, it was also artistically hugely successful, but in On Golden Pond, you and your father laid bare in a sense your struggle to connect and put it on film. That's scarier to me than jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, is exposing that kind of vulnerability with a parent because so many people have a complicated relationship

with their parents. Especially in people of a certain age, with parents of a certain age, especially if the parents came from the Midwest. Yeah. And so was your dad aware the whole time that that's what you were exploring or could he tell himself, well, these are just characters? Because I feel... These are just characters.

Oh, okay. There's a scene where I tell him I want to be his friend. It's my big scene in the movie. And it was something that I, every time I read it in rehearsals, I would become very emotional because these are things that I never said to my dad. I want to be your friend, et cetera. And then when it finally came time for me to shoot to do it with the camera facing me, I dried up.

It was really hard. It was a really important scene for me. And my dad always liked doing things that had been rehearsed. He wanted to know everything that was going to happen in advance. So on purpose, I did something that I hadn't done in rehearsal. When I said I want to be your friend, I reached out and touched his arm. And he ducked his head and he went like this, but I could see that he got emotional, made me so happy.

And I went to dinner at his house that night and I told him how I had dried up and how I had a hard time with the scene because it was so personal. And I said, you know, in your long career, dad, did that ever happen to you? Nope. That was it. Nope, period. Nope. Yeah.

You know, he didn't say, well, tell me about what happened. You know, he had no, he had no clue. Nope. And, you know, but that's who he was. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. You find out later in therapy that parents, you know, they're doing what they can with what they've been given.

They're doing the best they can. They're doing the best they can. Not all parents. So I don't think you're doing the best we can. Oh, okay. Sorry. Just jump out for a second. That seems hurtful.

I've only been a parent for like a year and a half. But you're saying, you're saying I'm already just... You seem high most of the time. That is... Oh, okay. That's not totally inaccurate. Your first early years where you really have to do the best you can. Oh, okay.

Then I should stop getting those items. You know, I was thinking about, because you've had so many career arcs. Some people have one. You just have had multiple sections in your career where you, including right now, which is stunning to me. You have three movies coming out in four months, which you've never done before. At 85 years old. That never happened to me before, okay?

Yeah. Well, it didn't happen to you. I think you had to agree to it at some point. I mean, you... This is you. No, I did. I agreed to it. I didn't even really understand at the time.

See, we finished me and Lily Tomlin, finished the seven years of Grace and Frankie. A week later, we started a film together called Moving On. And then that was short. When I started, I needed to fix. I needed Lily. I've missed her. It was a physical thing. And then, Eddie for Brady came along, and it was with Lily, and yes.

But also to get Rita Moreno and Sally Field. I mean, it's just, in addition to Lily Tomlin, it's incredible. All of you are out there kicking ass. Yeah. Well, we had such a good time. I've loved Sally for as long as I've loved Lily. I've known both of them since the 70s, and I always wanted to work with Sally. And to watch her build her character in this movie was such a thrill.

You have these friendships with women now. That was not the case when you were young. No. You... What was... You had a different attitude towards women. Yeah. It's an old frame of mind that I hope is disappearing that says, when you grow up, what that means

is you're no longer emotional, you're no longer needy. You stand on your own like a guy. That's the signal of adult maturity. That plus the fact that my mother had done away with herself, I thought, you know... I think you were 12 when that happened, yeah. And even before then, I thought, no, women are losers. The best thing to do is to hitch your wagon to an alpha male. And then everybody's going to want to be around him.

And so you'll, you know, come in on his coattails. And I felt that way until I was about 60. Really? Yeah. That took me a long time to get over that. Well, that shocks me because I would have thought I could see in the 60s that being a mentality that you have, but then... No.

The stuff that happens in the early years, that's why you have to do your best parenting then, stays with you a long time. And so I just, I had no women friends, only men friends. And then I had a daughter in my 30s and I left my France life with my husband and everything. And I moved back here and became an activist and the people that really impacted me were women. And they were, they were women like I had never met before. The way they behaved, the way they treated people.

It was like looking through a keyhole at the world that we were all fighting for. And I just thought, wow, I want some of that. So I started bonding with women like that, all younger than me, smarter than me, braver than me. And they helped me so much. You know, it's amazing that you could, that anyone could ever have the idea that men are the strong ones because anything you learn later on as you go through life is that women, you know, women are the backbone.

And I've been to so many countries where they openly say, I mean, in Haiti, they'll tell you, oh, it's the women. It's the women that... This is true. Yeah. That the women leave, they get educated, they, and then they come back and they are trying to hold this country together. Yeah.

All over the world, you're right. It's women who are leading the fight against the climate crisis all over the world. There are many, many profound reasons why this is true. Maybe it'll have to be for another talk, Conan, which would be interesting to have. Is this the birds and the bees talk? No. No. I am 59 years old and I'm still waiting on that talk because I don't know how any of

it works. But... No, it's interesting. Women have so many psychological and emotional advantages that give them great strength. And I think it goes all the way back to a hunter-gatherer times, in fact. Women in their DNA understand interdependence. Women know that we are all connected and we're connected to the earth and to other species. Women aren't afraid of expressing need.

You know, women friendships, right? Yes. Yeah. We say, oh, God, I need a hug. For Brady, one of the things that I like the most is that there's a scene with Lily when I can... I need a hug. You know, men, you never hear men saying to another...to a guy friend, I need a hug.

Or tell me what to do. I'm really lost. Yeah. And women laugh together differently. Women's friendships are face to face, eyeball to eyeball. Men side by side looking out at things, women, cars, sports, events and things like that. They don't ask for help. I think it's one reason why women live on average five years longer than men do.

Yeah. It used to be seven years. We've lost a little ground there. But it's all... Is your child a boy or a girl? They have two boys. Two boys, twins. Yeah.

Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. That's why when you're talking about masculinity, I'm making a very conscious effort to try to make sure that they don't grow up with those types of hangups. Yeah. If you want, I can come over anytime and hug your husband in front of your children. Okay.

That's really a weird thing to say. I'm trying to help them... That's a weird thing to say. To keep missing the point. I know. I know. I want to model this kind of masculine... I know.

Don't model anything. I know. Okay. I won't. Help them remain emotionally literate. Yes. They're born emotionally literate. Let them keep that.

Don't let coaches and fathers and teachers shut that down, which is what happens in this movie close. Yeah. Okay. I have to see that. Because I read some, I think it was a quote you said once, that it was Ted Turner who told you, you don't make friends after your 60s and you have completely proven him wrong. Yeah.

He also said, you don't change after 60. And I said, I think you're in big trouble if you don't change after 60. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, 60 is when you start... Well, you're... I'm a few months shy of becoming 60.

Yeah. Well, 60 in the way I look at it is the beginning of your third act. Yeah. And in order to do a good third act, in order to know how to go forward in your third act, you have to know where you've been. So you have to spend a lot of time thinking about the first two acts and even more important, your parents. Why is that?

Why are they the way they are? Yeah. Or were they? Are your parents alive? My parents are. My dad is 94. My mom is 91. Uh-huh.

And they're out in the clubs every now and then. How long have they been married? I think, wow, good Lord. Are they the only people they can marry, too? They got married at the... Think at the very close of the Civil War. I mean, I wish I could tell you exactly, but I want to say it was 1958. Okay.

So they've only been married to each other? Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. That was it. That's how strict Irish Catholics you marry and then that is it. And that's it no matter what. That's it no matter what.

Yeah. I mean, there were many times I'm still trying to get my mom to divorce my dad. I call her every day and say it's time, go, but she's sticking it out. You're trying to get her on the apps to start dating another guy. She keeps swiping the wrong way. That's what's ruining it. You're finding out, I mean, you know, you're lucky that they're still alive. Yes, I am.

Very lucky. Both of them, mine were gone by the time I started my third act. But finding out why they are the way they are, how were their parents, what were your grandparents like? How did they treat you? Yeah. You end up when it's called doing a life review and you end up realizing that whatever was fucked up had nothing to do with you.

Yeah. I turned my life review into my memoir and in the course of doing it, I discovered why my mother was the way she was and it had nothing to do with me, had to do with early childhood sexual abuse. And so I could forgive, you know, and that's such a beautiful thing. It's... I mean, out of every four women in this country have experienced sexual abuse and it's interesting to try to tease that out if that's part of your family history, which means that you

have to interview your parents separately. Right. I think the other thing too is there was such a reticence about talking about anything. I mean, I come from a very Irish Catholic culture, as you can imagine, and it's the same thing. You... Unpleasant things are not discussed. You don't talk about them.

And so laughter is allowed and food is allowed. Sex is discouraged and talking about anything that might hurt somebody's feelings is discouraged. So you get this strange ecosystem sometimes where... And this is not... My family... This is all... It's so much. I just watched the banshees of...

Yeah. I was gonna ask you... I watched the banshees of... And you identified. And it's crazy. It takes place in, I think, 1920 or something and it's on this island and it's in Ireland and I grew up in Boston and my parents are very educated people and I watched that movie with miniature donkeys and people cutting off their fingers and absolute madness.

And not just me, but other Irish people that I know, other Irish Americans, I know go, oh yeah, that makes sense because we're an insular crazy people with a gift of gab and we can be quite funny and we get quite depressed. But we come from this island and there's stuff in our DNA that's batshit crazy. Yeah. I was married to one. My second husband, Irish Catholic. How'd that go?

Beautifully and fabulously for much of the time and I'm really, really grateful. And we named our son Troy O'Donovan. Oh, there you go. Garrity. That's too Irish. Yeah, the very Irish name. Garrity. It'll either be a playwright or a bartender.

He's an actor. Those are the only two choices I'm afraid. So you've made all these great bonds and connections in this third chapter. What comes across in 84 Brady is that you're all having fun. You like each other and you're having fun and I've always maintained, I don't care if you're Lawrence Olivia, you can't fake that. If there's a real connection there and you're enjoying each other's company and having a good time, that comes through the screen.

It comes through, yeah. Absolutely unbelievable. Yeah. It's really fun. We did. We had a great time. You know, I was thinking today and I wanted to ask you about this because it only occurred to me much later, but we went through and are still going through the whole me too movement

and then I realized nine to five, which is 1980. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. Okay. And for good reason. Yeah. Nine to five. I want to say it's 1980. Yes.

That movie is dealing with sexual harassment and that movie is maybe 30 years ahead of its time. I mean, because there's a period of time and you can still see it. You can see these movies where sexually harassing women is kind of a joke. You know, the guy in the office chasing the assistant around the desk. It's almost quaint. Yeah. It has a quaintness the way people that drank too much used to have a quaintness, but no

one had really shown a light on it, I don't think. Or wage theft, or guys being trained by a woman who knows the business better than anybody and being promoted right past her. All those kinds of things. I mean, they are, they're all still, they're all still out there in the workforce. Yep. I know you're talking about Lily, but Dolly Parton, you bonded with her while making that film.

Yes. She is an amazing woman. She is. She is so smart and she's kind of psychic. She's really profound. I am in awe of Dolly. I love her very much. And she gave you advice because you had seen your father's reaction to fame, which was

he... Oh, it was... If someone came up to Henry Fond and won an autograph, he was terrified. He would run. He spoiled more weekends with me and my brother when he would come and visit us because he and my mother were separated and he would take us to, in Rye, there's a playland, Rye New York and he would take us there and I'll never forget, a woman came and asked for his autograph and he ran and he was in bad mood all day at ruin, the whole thing for

us. He hated it. He... I mean, I don't know why, but he just hated it. And I was with Dolly. We went on the road. She was so grateful for me casting her in the movie, nine to five. And I was preparing to do a story of a hillbilly illiterate woman based on a book called

The Dollmaker and I needed to go there and meet those people. And Dolly, I said to her, you're the only hillbilly I know. Can you help me? And you know what's cool, you can say that to Dolly Barton and she's cool with it. Yeah. I said, I want to meet somebody who lives in a holler with no electricity or anything so I can kind of flesh out my character. And so she took me.

I went to Nashville, I stayed with her and her husband, Carl, that was an experience in her house, Carl cooked us breakfast. I said, how did you two meet? And he described the first time he saw her, he was driving a truck past a 7-Eleven and there she was in the parking lot drinking a crown cola. And he was just sitting at the breakfast table. He said, no, you don't understand. It was like, and he fell over backwards.

Now that is love. Describing how you met her. He is a handsome man, boy. I sang back up for Dolly at the Grand Old Opry. Oh my God. And anyway, she put me on her tour bus with three or four friends of hers and we spent 10 days touring Appalachia, Missouri, the Ozarks, Arkansas. And I ended up meeting somebody that I went back and lived with and chopped their wood

and milked their cow and so on and so forth. But what, so here we were on the road in the back hollers, you know, with people who lived in tar paper shacks, Dolly, and it was her tour bus and she was had the state room at the end. I never saw her not looking 100% Dolly Parton, the wig, the whole thing, you know, going to see these people. She presented herself just like they hoped she would. And I thought, yeah, that's how to do it.

You've got to love those people who like you. Yes. Yeah. And oh boy, does she have fans and she just loves them and appreciates them. And she taught me, she taught me a lot. She didn't say anything. She showed by example. She showed by example.

Yeah. So cool. But that's, I'm glad that you found your way. Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking about your dad in the selfie era. Do you think he hated an autograph? Oh my God. Or TMZ.

What's that? TMZ. TMZ. Henry, Henry, you know, yeah. That wouldn't have gone too well. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, you've achieved so much in, in film and you've written your, this beautiful

memoir and you've been an activist. And then sometimes I forget there's this part of your career that anyone else could hang their hat on, which was the exercise videos. Anyone else who had done that would have, could have, that could have been their whole claim to fame. It was, it's such a massive phenomenon and I think it got so many people thinking about their health. That's a gift that keeps on giving.

It is. Yeah. Do you remember Lyndon LaRouche? Yeah. Lyndon LaRouche was a horrible man who. This was quite a turn button. Yeah. If you're listening, if you're driving right now, I hope you didn't just crash into a tree.

Do you remember Lyndon LaRouche? No one else says that, but I do. Yeah. This will get back. You know, he would send people into gay bars with chains that, to beat up gay people. Yeah. He had people standing at the airports holding signs, you know, like Feed Jane funded to the way, you know, or terrible, mean signs.

And I read an article, this was like, like 1977, we were in a recession that he funded all of this from a business, a computer business. And I thought, I was married to the Irishman then, Tom Hayden. I said, we've got to start a business because we had a statewide organization, the Campaign for Economic Democracy, and it was hard to fund, it's a, you know, huge state. We had offices up and down the state. And so we spent a year thinking, what the business, a restaurant, neither of us know anything about food, you know, or whatever, whatever.

And then a very smart man who started Delancey Street was a house, place where people could go who were recovering from addictions and things like that, John Maher. And he said, don't ever start a business that you don't understand. Well, that brought me up short, because the only thing I really understood was exercise. And I had met a woman named Lenny Kasdan who was doing this workout, and we turned it into a business that funded the organization. That's incredible. Yeah.

Copied Lyndon LaRouche. That's it. Now, to be fair, I've watched Lyndon LaRouche's exercise videos, and he's wearing the leg warmers. Yeah. I gained weight watching this. Yeah. I gained 200 pounds.

And an ulcer. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny how you bring that up. I mean, even today, we live in a world where there's so much anger, and there's so many people that are angry about how someone else is living their life, which I never understand, you know. Like, how does that concern you if someone else is living their life a certain way?

Why is that? Well, if you're suffering, and you know that you're suffering because of the fuckers and Washington, the neoliberals of the last few many decades pay more attention to Wall Street and to money and to bankers than they do trying to serve me living in the Midwest and the Rust Belt. And so if you're suffering and you grew up with your dad belong to a union and his dad belong to a union and they could afford to buy a home and send their kids to school and now you can't, and now you have to take a job as a waiter, of course you're going to

be angry. Yeah. Of course. And that's why these elected officials have to start paying attention, you know, and not just thinking because the Dow Jones look a certain way that the people in the Midwest are going to be feeling okay. They're not. I think one of the things that gets to me, though, is I think the anger is clearly legitimate.

It's when people exploit it, get elected on it and then don't do anything to really address the issue. Yeah. I know who you're thinking of. We won't mention his name. Is it Lyndon LaRouche? It was you, Gorlin. What?

No, no. You didn't see that coming. But yeah, it's fascinating to talk to you and to see you're as fired up and passionate now about pretty much everything we've talked about as you would have been in 1975. And I'm wondering if, like, everyone's always trying to figure out what's the way to age and stay healthy. Clearly you are the greatest example of being able to achieve that and in style. But at the same time, I think, you know, people wonder, what is it?

What is it? And some people say it's staying connected and I think also passionate. I mean, you're... Interested. Interested. Yeah. You know, and as you get older, if you've stayed interested and curious, you realize that it's all connected.

We need humility and we need to get rid of greed and we need to understand that the collective is what's important. Yeah. Well, I think humility is, with a capital H, is massive. Yeah. Such an arrogance when people think, well, it's 2023 and we know most of what mankind needs to know and we don't know anything. Nothing.

They're constantly finding, I mean, a hundred years from now, they will laugh at what we thought. Yeah. Now. If we're even around in a hundred years. I'll be here. Because of our ignorance. You'll be here.

You will be here. You'll be here. You'll be here. Bobbing on the ocean. You'll be here. My little pompadour sticking out of the water. You're red pompadour sticking out like a wave. You know, I was going to say that I've heard you talk in interviews, especially lately,

because of 80 for Brady and these a bunch of your recent films that comedy came too late. And I was thinking, first of all, you're hilariously funny. And in your, I thought, Kapaloo, that's a fantastic comedy. And you, that was your, I think, first big hit. And you were funny then. What made you, why was it a surprise to you later on that you were a deaf? Well, if somebody is writing funny dialogue for me. And the set up is funny, I can be funny.

I'm not natural, I'm naturally kind of depressed. My dad, my mom suffered from depression. But I have spent 80 years trying to get over that. And, you know, I've really worked hard to not be a depressed person. But I'm basically earnest. You know, I can tell when I'm sitting with Lily, you know, somebody will come up and ask us a question and she will automatically answer something that is hysterical. And I just, I'm going to answer the question.

You know what I mean? Plain Jane. Well, wait a minute. You know who, you know, who really helped me? Who? Ted. Spending Ted 10 years with Ted, who is hysterical. Ted Churn is a funny man.

Oh my God, he is funny. And outrageous. And I saw, it's okay to be outrageous. Yeah. And that really helped me. That's yeah. He seems to not care what anybody else is thinking. He's like a sieve.

It just all comes out. But his take on life is just like Lily's is inherently funny. I just think it's unfair to you to say, I don't think I'm gifted in comedy because when I'm sitting next to Lily Tomlin, it's you're, you're, you're grading yourself on this crazy scale. Yeah. Yes. Lily Tomlin is one of the greatest.

She's in the stratosphere. Well, yeah. She's in the stratosphere. But you walked into our podcast building and had the room laughing right away. And so yeah. It's because of Ted Turner. No, it is. Okay.

All right. I didn't know that. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Turner. We, for a couple of years on my show when I moved to Turner Network, because it was Turner Network, we had a very talented actor from Serenade Live, portray Ted Turner. He'd come in to give me advice on a stuffed buffalo. Wilforte.

Oh, I know. Yeah. Yeah. I just didn't want to, I don't want Turner to go after Wilforte. I just want him just coming after me. No, I'm kidding. But yeah, he would come in and go, give me all this advice and the crowd always loved it.

And I thought, someday I'm going to walk out in the parking lot and Ted Turner is going to pistol with me. And then right off on his stuffed buffalo, he has the largest private herd of buffalo in the world. Yeah. He brought back the bison, actually, that's the way that they're called. I don't see how I compete with these other men. I know.

You die in your life. I don't think you do. I think you just accept defeat. I'm sorry. Accept defeat gracefully. Yeah. Humility. Compete with Ted.

Yeah. It sounds like it. I thought the buffalo thing was a bit, but it's not. No, he has. That's incredible. That's why we did it. He was a child. He's been obsessed with bison and he's grown a herd.

He had 10,000 when I married him and now, you know, many, he buys property. He's got a couple of million acres in order to grow his spice and herd. That's amazing. Wow. I'd heard that. Yeah. You heard that. I heard.

You heard about the herd. I heard about the herd. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That's a well-known fact. I'm sorry. I don't know anything.

I'm sorry. He has two million acres and he has gone about bringing back endangered, not just mammals, species, but insects and plants, biologists live on all his properties and they bring back species. It's amazing what he's done. Because the buffalo was more or less extinct and then, I'm glad that it's brought, I don't know how many heads of buffalo there are in the U.S. now, but the fact that you can eat it.

You looked at me like I would know because you're always weighing in with these facts. Oh, and Wardo's looking it up. That's fantastic. Fights in. Feed it to me, Eduardo, like I knew. What a waste of our time thinking about the buffalo facts. So what's next? Because you are a real inspiration.

I'm going to the Gulf, Louisiana and Texas, ground zero for the climate crisis. The Biden administration has permitted two dozen new gas terminals in places where people are dying and we don't need new drilling and fracking except to get those guys richer than they already are. We don't need to do that anymore and we have to stop the Biden administration from doing this. So I'm going to try to go there with fire drill Fridays and interview and film people who are dealing with this on the ground and then build it up as an issue.

Can I ask you how many times you've been arrested? Do you know? I think seven. That's not a lot. Martin Sheen's been arrested 70 times. It's called civil disobedience. But only some of that was for activism. It's always punching people for no reason.

No, no, no, no, no. Not the son. You're right. You're right. I'm sorry. I got confused with Charlie for a second. But Charlie is OK now. Yeah.

He's doing fine. He's doing fine. Well, this has been, we've been doing this. How long have we been doing this podcast? Oh, four years. Four years. Five years. Almost five.

This is a huge highlight for me. Yeah. It's an absolute. Thank you. For me too. Well, this, boy, just, I'm really blown away. We were all so excited that you were coming here today. And you've been a big part of my life.

I mean, I adore your work. And then you walk in today and you are stunning. You are so beautiful and so funny and so smart. Well, I'd like your, I'd like your people. They need to work on me. You know, you're doing just fine. We'll work it out. Yeah.

I got to do it. Maybe I should release an exercise video. Oh, gosh. Just me getting up. No, I'm, I'm, yeah, I'd love to see that. I would too. Yeah. Okay.

Well, that's not going to happen. Jane, thank you so much. If I ever did a new video, would you do it with me? Yes, I would. Okay. Yes, I would. I'm going to take you up on it. Yes.

I will find a very clingy unitard. Yes. Oh, down, Gourly. Of course I would. Yeah. It will hurt your sales tremendously. Yeah. But we'll get some.

No. You're very popular. Thank you. I didn't wait until this comes out. Jane, thank you so much. Thank you. This is an honor. I appreciate you having me on.

Wow. Goodbye to all your listeners. JanePak.com is how you can join me in my climate work. JanePak.com. Do that now. It's time for an important ceremony that we have not done in a while, state of the podcast. This is where we, what is, you know, it's called, it's like state of the union. Once a year, the president talks about the state of the country and it's usually a lot

of nothing, but let's see if we can top it. Well, I'm just saying there's a state of the podcast. We take this, we take our job seriously here. Yeah. This is where we talk about where we are and what we've achieved. Matt Gorley, I look to you because I'm just, I'm just the chimp that they've put into the Soviet space capsule. Yeah.

I don't know. I've just been. You got that right. Yeah. Why don't you look at me to give you the state of the podcast? Because I don't think you're really paying attention to that. Is this true? No, you're right.

That's fair. I'm just being completely honest. No, you're right. You're right. But Matt Gorley, you are a professional. What? You are brought into, no, seriously. That was a dig.

No, no. It's not a dig against you. It's a dig against myself too. Okay. You are brought in as this professional podcast man, this magical man who could take these clownish fools and turn this into a really good podcast. And you did that. And we owe you a debt of gratitude and also you have a perspective on how the podcast

is going, I would think. How do you think it's going? I think the state of the podcast is strong. We've branched off by now into satellite radio. There's a solid and strong thriving YouTube channel of clips from this show. And I think I'm just working under the grand tutelage of Adam Sacks, who we usually bring in on these segments because he's the real poobah. Yeah.

He is the man, some say, the dark force behind the throne. Right. The emperor. The emperor. I'm just fader. He's the emperor. I'm Palpatine. Yeah.

Sheev Palpatine. What is that? Sheev Palpatine. What do you mean? Sheev. That's his first name? That's his first name. He had a first name?

Sure. Well, he's got to live, doesn't he? Doesn't he? I thought his first name was emperor. No. That's his dark, like Darth Tyrannus persona. He was a senator on Naboo for years. It's terrible that we went down this little cul-de-sac.

So the state of the podcast is bad. This is a cul-de-sac of death. Let's get to the point. You asked. Yes. The state of the podcast is strong. The state of the podcast, according to Matt Gorley, is strong, but we're bringing now in Adam Sacks, who's the man behind the man behind the man, Adam, tell us how you feel

it's all going. It's going very well. Matt touched on a couple of the big things that are some of the important updates. When COVID hit and we left our Warner Brothers studio and we went on to Zoom, it sort of forced us to start to incorporate video into our podcast because we were on video on Zoom. We were always before that, like, let's keep cameras out. We wanted it to be a very camera-free environment, people to sort of forget where they were and just have an intimate conversation, and sometimes cameras can impact that.

But being on Zoom over COVID forced us to introduce cameras, and then we started to capture this YouTube video, and eventually we were like, well, we also happen to have a robust YouTube channel with a lot of followers. Let's try and put some of this video content out there and see what happens. And it did really well, and our existing YouTube fan base was excited to see what you all look like. We've gotten requests forever. I have a lot of fans that watch me on television for almost 30 years who were just excited

to see what I look like, which is unbelievable. They constantly were draping blankets over the television. Really? I got hundreds upon hundreds of comments about how old I looked compared to how you made me seem, just brutal, like, that's him, you know? Did that hurt your feeling? Yeah. What did I do?

I just clearly made you seem youthful and vibrant. No, you made me seem like a carnival teen. Well, anyway, I didn't come here to be accused of anything, so it sounds... So the Zoom video did well, but our fans were accustomed to high-quality video, and the Zoom video looked like crap for the most part, and now that we have this really state-of-the-art studio with high-quality cameras, that do sort of disappear into the background. We did, I will say, during the pandemic, when we were doing the podcasts on Zoom, for reasons I still don't understand, we used 7-Eleven security cameras, and they were set at the

same angle. And we all had to go into separate 7-Elevens to record. Yeah, exactly. And then we were all robbed while we were recording. But we did catch the villains. Yeah, so this is interesting to me. I want to point out this thing that I noticed. So I'm in television, and then I decide, you know, I really want to strip it down, I want

to do long-form interviews, I don't want there to be any video, I just want it to be audio, and I'll talk to people. After all these years of doing six and seven-minute interviews, I'll really get to explore all these areas that I've never had a chance to explore before with these fascinating people. This is great. And so we do it for a little bit, and then inevitably, people say, you know, be really great if we had some cameras in there, and I think, oh, okay, we'll put some cameras in there.

And we do that, and that's fine. And then they say, be really great if we did some of these for a live audience, like at the Beacon Theater, or at the downtown L.A. Theater, let's do it, you know, what about that? And I think, oh, okay. If you're going to be in front of an audience, it'd be really fun if you came out first and sort of entertained the crowd a little bit, and I went, I'll do that. Might also be good if you had some music behind you, you want to get Jimmy Vino and

some of the guys. Sure, I'll do that. I realize they tricked me into doing a television show again. You're in a twilight zone. It's the same thing. Yeah. A couple of times, I realized that, well, farewell. Late night show, that's the end of you, and now something new.

Me, jumping around like an idiot in front of a live audience with music behind me, and then interviewing the people that I interviewed on television. Tell us the Greek tragedy about the man who couldn't not do a talk show. No, it's all fun. So Adam, it's strong, and we're not going to, like, there's no end. There's no danger of this thing ending in the next couple of weeks. No, it's evolving. I mean, the fan episode is another thing that has changed over the past.

I mean, maybe you have done this state of the podcast since then, but I don't know. I mean, the fan episodes have been another thing that we've sort of added to the show, another evolution of the show that I think is really great as another dimension. Well, what I love about it is I'm talking to people all over the world. That just blows my mind if I'm talking to someone who's in Eastern Africa, you're talking to someone who's in Iran, you're talking to someone. I mean, the fact that I always go back to this, but I'm always amused that we're infecting the brains of people in these far off cultures.

Talk about a pandemic. I know, exactly. This is a real pandemic. I know, but it is, I do love talking to these people and finding out what their lives are like and what they're doing, and that's a gift that keeps on giving. As much as I love talking to the celebrities who are, we talk to so many really funny people and fascinating people, but when we get a chance to talk to someone who lives up in Wales and they've got a really specific kind of life and we get to a peak into that world

that blows my mind. The diversity of those conversations is really, is a different layer that a lot of the celebrity episodes don't necessarily have. Right, right. Well, because celebrities are all phonies. And then the number side is, we don't need to get into it, but it's very strong. We're talking like in the teens? Across the board, podcast industry at the beginning of COVID took a hit, the audience

numbers took a hit. I think people stopped commuting, they stopped going out to the gym, a lot of routines changed, and so there was a period of time where there was a decrease just in the industry for listening. And I think over time, not only have people figured out a way to work podcast back into the routine, a lot of the routines have come back, but even if they haven't, podcasts have come back into their lives, and now we've exceeded pre-COVID numbers. What? I think it was my, it's the neediness that I keep putting out there.

Yeah. Conan O'Brien needs a friend. That neediness, I think there's a sense that people felt, yeah, my life changed during COVID, but man, I'm worried about Conan. Yeah. He's so needy. You made people feel better about how bad things were, because they're like, at least I'm not Conan O'Brien.

All right, there you go. Oh, is that, I thought that's where you were going. I thought that's the path you were going down. No? No? Oh. Oh, please, now you're going to make fun of my hard Gs and stuff. No.

Okay. I thought that's where you were headed. What were you headed? I don't know where I was headed. Okay. I'm just a guy, a creator, I suppose, a force. A force. Does the sun know that it supplies light to the earth?

No, the sun just does what it does, and then all life stems from the sun. So I guess I'm like the sun, a big ball of gas. Yeah, there we go. You got there. You got there. It's burning everything around me. Yeah. No, this makes me happy.

This makes me happy that the state of the podcast is strong. I'm indebted to you, Matt Gorley. And I you. We'll edit that out. Adam Sacks. I'm indebted to you. And I you. Eduardo.

I mean, indebted to you for the good work that you do, engineering this show, making it all happen. Thank you, sir. And who else? I don't see. Let me have up one more person in the room. Maybe you're going to assist into 14 years. Right next to you.

Ah, yes, yes. You need to do your glasses. I do my part. So that's me thanking me. And Sona, you, of course, you're the best. Okay. Well, that's nice. All right.

Well, we're having fun. We hope you're having fun listening to this foolishness. You said that. Didn't sound fun at all. We're really having fun. I hope you're having fun too. The way this needs to end is we go, love you guys. Love you guys, man.

Group hug. Love you. Love you all. Love you. Oh, don't. Adam, when you said it, it showed me to the bone. You just bro side hugged me. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You just, Adam doesn't even see humans. You just see, you just see metrics and demos when you look at us. Did you just roofie us? Yeah. I love our metrics. You see.

I would love to see what Adam sees and it's just like a bunch of ones and zeros sort of in the shape of humans. I'm a bar graph. You're a pie chart. Yeah. You're just a spreadsheet. Yeah. I love you metrics.

I mean humans. Conan O'Brien needs.