Jane Fonda at SAG Awards 2025
Jane Fonda cannot be silenced by mere technical sound points.
The actress and the activist isn’t one to let somewhat technical problem steal the present—particularly not on an evening meant to have fun her legendary profession.
Whereas accepting the Life Achievement Award on the 2025 SAG Awards in Los Angeles, the 80 for Brady star discovered herself in the course of an surprising sound mishap when the pre-recorded announcer started talking over her.
However somewhat than letting the second derail her speech, Fonda took all of it in stride along with her signature wit.
“I can conjure up voices!” she joked, drawing laughter from the gang earlier than urgent on along with her highly effective message.
Jane Fonda’s SAG Awards 2025 acceptance speech:
Fonda, an icon whose profession has spanned six a long time throughout movie, tv, and theater, used her speech to focus on the function of actors in fostering understanding.
“What we, actors, create is empathy. Our job is to understand another human being so profoundly that we can touch their souls,” she stated.
She additionally made it clear that empathy isn’t one thing to draw back from. “And make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke. By the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people.”
Reflecting on her profession, Fonda described it as something however predictable.
“I’ve had a really weird career—totally unstrategic,” she admitted. “I retired for 15 years and came back at 65, which is not usual. 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 additionally poked enjoyable at herself, recalling how appearing gave her an outlet in an period when ladies have been typically discouraged from expressing sturdy opinions.
“I grew up in the ’40s and ’50s when women weren’t supposed to have opinions and get angry,” she shared. “Acting gave me a chance to play angry women with opinions, which, you know, is a bit of a stretch for me.”
Past her contributions to the display screen, Fonda has been an unwavering power in activism, standing up for civil rights, gender equality, and environmental causes.
She reminded the viewers of Hollywood’s historic resistance in opposition to oppression.
“I made my first movie in 1958. It was at the tail end of McCarthyism, when so many careers were destroyed,” she stated. “Today, it’s helpful to remember, though, that Hollywood resisted. We did.”
Then, she posed a thought-provoking query, “Have any of you ever watched a documentary of one of the great social movements—of apartheid or civil rights or Stonewall—and ask yourself would you have been brave enough to walk the bridge? Would you have been able to take the hoses and the batons and the dogs?”
She didn’t watch for a solution. “We don’t have to wonder anymore, because we are in our documentary moments. This is it, and it’s not a rehearsal!”
As her speech got here to an in depth, Fonda left the viewers with a rallying cry to remain united within the face of uncertainty.
“We mustn’t, for a moment, kid ourselves about what is happening. This is big time serious, folks. 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 inspiriting vision of the future.”
However she additionally assured them that hope stays. “On the other side, there will still be love, there will still be beauty, and there will be an ocean of truth for us to swim in.”
It was a speech that had every little thing—ardour, humor, resilience, and a transparent reminder of why Fonda has remained a power in Hollywood and past.
And if anybody was nonetheless questioning whether or not she might command a room, technical glitches and all, the reply was loud and clear, completely.