Jane Fonda On Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger, Trump, and Tech Bros

A feisty Jane Fonda on Thursday spoke out about her opposition to the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, her aversion to Donald Trump, and the eerie desire that “tech bros, oligarchs and billionaires” have for longevity, “while they’re killing the rest of us,” as she put it.

Fonda, 88, took questions from a small group of journalists prior to being honored at the DVF Awards charity gala held on the sidelines of the Venice Film Festival by fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg to honor extraordinary women. The event’s other honorees were the Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Amor Mottley; American photojournalist Lynsey Addario; Kenyan social entrepreneur Wawira Njiru and France’s feminist icon Gisèle Pelicot.

Though the bulk of the conversation with Fonda was about politics, her activism and the tyranny of tech bros, the two-time Oscar winner also provided an update on her career as an actress.

“The Correspondent,” Lionsgate’s film adaptation of Virginia Evans’ bestselling novel about a retired lawyer who uses letter-writing to impose order on a complicated world, is now in final stages of pre-production, she said. Fonda hopes cameras will start rolling in January, though “it depends on the director.” And she has other projects percolating: “I just can’t mention them.”

It’s clear that Fonda is eager to get back in front of the camera.

“After five years of not working as an actor, I have to confess that — as much as I love the work that I do with my comrades in the movement — I miss the process of becoming somebody else. It is such a thrilling process. I love it. I miss it,” she underlined.

You recently defended Mark Ruffalo’s First Amendment right to speak out about politics and powerful corporations in the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, which you are opposed to. What is your main concern regarding the prospect of this merger? 

I am hopeful that we can stop it. They’re carrying so much debt. The Ellisons are carrying so much debt, and it’s being postponed now, so that they have to pay these huge sums. The merger would be terrible for consumers. Prices would go up. Thousands and thousands of people would lose their jobs. And as a creative, the fewer studios there are, the fewer places that we can take our products. We lose bargaining power. Unions lose their power. There’s a very robust and growing movement to stop the mergers. And it, you know, it’s sad for me because I like David Ellison very much. David’s Skydance financed “Grace and Frankie,” my seven-year-long run for Netflix, and I got to know him, and I like him. But that doesn’t change things. This is not a personal thing. This is what it will do to the entertainment industry, which is already suffering terribly.

How how do you think Ted Turner would have felt about the prospect of Paramount owning CNN?

Oh, I think he would be terribly upset. He didn’t want to sell back in the day when he sold, and I was still with him then. And I remember all of the big thinkers, you know, the John Malones, the Gordie Crawfords. They were all saying, “You’ve got to do this.” Ted didn’t want to do it, but he did. And now David Zaslav did. Ted would be absolutely heartbroken.

You stood up for Mark Ruffalo when he was accused of antisemitism. Do you think there’s a blacklist now in Hollywood?

Absolutely. I mean, this is a tactic that they’re they’re using. Larry Ellison, because he doesn’t like Mark Ruffalo’s position on the merger, accuses him of antisemitism, when he said nothing that that isn’t within his constitutional right to say. It’s a tactic they’re using. He should be ashamed of himself, Larry Ellison. But there’s a lot of support for Mark. A lot of people came forward.

You started becoming a political activist very young. How important was it for you to take political positions?

I was 33 years old when I became an activist. And my life before then was so silly. So nothing. So meaningless. And when I became an activist I met entirely different kinds of people. Back in the 1970s, around Vietnam, there was a backlash. But I was part of a movement. I was not alone. This is very important. Mark is part of a movement. He’s not alone. This is a time when we have to stick together. We can’t be alone. They can’t pick us off when we’re alone.

Has it become harder to speak out about things since Donald Trump’s rise?

Not for me. No. I’ve had my life. He can do nothing to me. I’m not scared. But that’s not true for everyone, and I understand that. And that’s why I’m encouraging people to join the movement. I created the committee for the First Amendment a year ago, on Oct. 1. It existed in the 1940s and ’50s as a way to confront McCarthy and the witch hunts. My dad was a member. And we have thousands and thousands of members, and we have them come together. We’re building community.

What happens to normal people who are not you? How do you see the fact that it’s more difficult for them to speak out?

More and more of them are speaking out. I’ll tell you why. Their whole lives are at risk right now. AI could take away their jobs. And then data centers are being put into their neighborhoods that are destroying [the environment]. There’s been a shift in the U.S. Things are changing. Republicans and Democrats alike are standing there saying, “No. You’re not going to put a data center in my community.” No, you’re not going to put a detention center.” We can see now that MAGA members, even, they’re not liking the fact that their leaders are profiting off misery and cruelty. They don’t like that. They don’t like the chaos that’s happening. They don’t like the way the immigrants are being treated.

Do you have a presidential candidate that you like for 2028?

You know, it’s too soon. We don’t know what’s going to happen. I can tell you though. I’m looking at Jon Ossoff. Aside from the presidential race aside, there are some young politicians I like. Justin Pearson [the Tennessee State Representative who is running for Congress in November], for example. There’s a woman, Peggy Flanagan, [Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota since 2019 who is a Democrat running for the United States Senate in 2026]. She’s an Indigenous woman, Ojibwe from Minnesota. She’s going to get into the Senate. I mean, imagine if we had senators who thought, “Hmm, the decision I’m going to make now. How is it going to affect people seven generations from now?”

Within the global elites, longevity seems to be all the rage. What are your thoughts on that?

They want to live forever, while they’re killing the rest of us. There’s two things: Most of these guys, these tech bros and these oligarchs and billionaires, they feel that the laws that the rest of us live by don’t matter to them, including the laws of physics. Natural laws. They’re going to live forever. That’s one [thing]. The other is that because these [ageless] guys can’t have babies, they’ll create robots. That’ll be their babies. And they’ll just turn the rest of us into tradwives, who have a lot of babies too. Then they’ll take away the vote. Can you believe it? And we’re not going to stand for it. They’re not going to win, because we’re not going to stand for it. The big problem is — and this has never happened in the history of humankind — if this was happening at any other time, you could say: “We’re going to win, in the end.” But because of the climate crisis, we don’t have that much time. You know, there’s a point where if it gets too hot. Then there’s no going back.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.