BARBARELLA is back.
Jane Fonda – who had retired from acting after marrying her now ex-husband, media mogul Ted Turner – says she decided to resume her movie career after appearing in “The Vagina Monologues” rekindled her interest in acting.
Fonda was in Park City, Utah, with “Vagina Monologues” author Eve Ensler to promote the feminist documentary “V-Day: Until the Violence Stops,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival prior to its Feb. 17 showing on Lifetime TV.
But the Oscar-winning actress didn’t want to talk about the recent bombshell announcement that she will appear in “Monster-in-Law,” playing the difficult mother of Jennifer Lopez’s fiancée – her first movie since 1990’s “Stanley and Iris.”
“I’m not going to talk about that on somebody else’s dime,” the still ravishingly beautiful 66-year-old said firmly but politely.
“And I don’t think appearing in a movie is the slightest bit more important than my playing in ‘The Vagina Monlogues’ across the street in 20 minutes.”
Ensler said the multimillionaire actress and longtime political activist has been a major financial supporter of the V-Day movement that grew out of her play, which has been campaigning to stop violence against women around the world, a subject explored in the documentary.
The two met three years ago when Ensler approached Fonda to join other celebrities like Salma Hayek and Isabella Rossellini in performing “The Vagina Monologues.”
“I originally turned it down, because I was really scared to perform such intimate material,” said Fonda, who went on to perform it in Madison Square Garden. “But that’s really what ended my retirement from acting.”
On V-Day itself, Feb. 14, Fonda and Ensler will join an anticipated 50,000 people – including actor Troy Garrity (“Barbershop”), Fonda’s son with ex-hubby Tom Hayden – in protesting government neglect of women’s rights in Juarez, Mexico.
Relaxing momentarily from sticking to her agenda, Fonda smiled and admitted she and Ensler have been talking about an update of one of her most famous roles, as a sexy spacewoman in the 1966 sci-fi classic “Barbarella,” directed by yet another ex-husband, Roger Vadim.
“Barbarella was only a few millimeters short of being a feminist,” Fonda said with a laugh.