Jane Fondais looking back on her life of achievement at theSAG Awards 2025.
The actress-activist, 87, accepted the highest honor of the annual ceremony, theSAG Life Achievement Award, during theKristen Bell-hosted show on Sunday, Feb. 23.
After a glowing introduction from presenterJulia Louis-Dreyfusand a montage of her work was played for he crowd, Fonda took the stage at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall, amid the crowd’s enthusiastic standing ovation.
“This means the world to me,” the two-timeOscarwinner began her acceptance speech, before thanking SAG-AFTRA and telling the audience, “Your enthusiasm makes this seem less like a late-twilight-of-my-life [moment] and more like a, ‘Go girl, kick ass [one].’ "
“Which is good, because I’m not done,” she added.
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Jane Fonda accepts the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award at the SAG Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 23, 2025.Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty
Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty
She also said she’s “a big believer in unions,” explaining, “They have our backs. They bring us into community, and they give us power. Community means power, and this is really important right now when workers' power is being attacked and community is being weakened.”
“But SAG-AFTRA is different than most other unions because us, the workers, we actors, we don’t manufacture anything tangible. What we create is empathy,” Fonda continued. “Our job is to understand another human being so profoundly that we can touch their souls. We know why they do what they do; we feel their joys and their pain.”
Jane Fonda accepts the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2025 SAG Awards.Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty
After giving examples of roles that tend to have complex backgrounds, like sex workers and bullies, Fonda said, “While you may hate the behavior of your character, you have to understand and empathize with the traumatized person you’re playing, right?”
Jane Fonda after winning Best Actress at the 51st Academy Awards in Los Angeles on April 9, 1979.Paul Harris/Getty
Paul Harris/Getty
The actress recalled making her first film in 1958, during “the tail end of McCarthyism, when so many careers were destroyed.”
“Today, it’s helpful to remember, though, that Hollywood resisted. We did. Overseas, brave American producers like Hannah Weinstein hired blacklisted writers. Myrna Lloyd, John Huston and Billy Wilder founded the Committee for the First Amendment. They had a radio show on ABC Radio calledHollywood Fights Back. Members of the committee included every big-name actor in town.”
“Have any of you ever watched a documentary of one of the great social movements, like apartheid or our civil-rights movement or Stonewall, and asked yourself, would you have been brave enough to walk the bridge?” Fonda asked the crowd. “Would you have been able to take the hoses and the batons and the dogs? We don’t have to wonder anymore, because we are in our documentary moment. This is it, and it’s not a rehearsal. This is it, and we mustn’t for a moment kid ourselves about what’s happening. This is big-time serious folks, so let’s be brave.”
“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, that will help people believe that, to quote the novelist Pearl Cleage, ‘On the other side of the conflagration, there will still be love. There will still be beauty, and there will be an ocean of truth for us to swim in.’ Let’s make it so,” she added, concluding of her award, “Thank you for this encouragement. Thank you.”
Jane Fonda at the Producers Guild Awards in Los Angeles on Feb 8, 2025.Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
At the31st SAG Awardshonoring the best film and television performances of 2024 — withWickedandShōgunleading this year’s nominations list — Fonda is the60th recipientof the Life Achievement honor. In recent years, it has gone toBarbra Streisand,Sally Field,Helen MirrenandRobert De Niro.
The award is dedicated to “a well-established performer who has contributed to improving the image of the acting profession and has a history of active involvement in humanitarian and public service endeavors,” per a press release.
SAG-AFTRA PresidentFran Dreschercalled Fonda “a trailblazer and an extraordinary talent” and “dynamic force who has shaped the landscape of entertainment, advocacy and culture with unwavering passion” in a statement last October.
“We honor Jane not only for her artistic brilliance but for the profound legacy of activism and empowerment she has created,” added Drescher. “Her fearless honesty has been an inspiration to me and many others in our industry.”
Among Fonda’s many other accolades are two Academy Awards, for 1971’sKluteand 1978’sComing Home, two BAFTAs, an Emmy, seven Golden Globes and last year’s TIME Magazine Earth Award. The organization Women in Film created the annualJane Fonda Humanitarian Awardin 2021.
SeePEOPLE’s full coverage of the 31st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, airing on Netflix.
source: people.com
