At age 77, Jane Fonda still doesn't have all the answers—and that's a good thing.
In fact, pondering life's biggest questions is what's kept the actress feeling young. "I have a strong belief that older people have a greater sense of well being," the star of Netflix's sitcom Grace and Frankie says in DuJour's Spring 2015 issue. "Older women in particular, it's like, 'What the hell do we have to lose?'"
It wasn't until she left her third husband, CNN founder Ted Turner, in 2001, that she came to that realization. Fonda recalls her then-husband telling her, "People aren't supposed to change after 60."
"I think about that all the time. He has hardly changed. And I feel like a different human being," says Fonda, who remains close with the TV titan. After leaving Turner, she was celibate for seven years. Then, at 74, the actress announced she was having the best sex of her life with music producer Richard Perry.
So yes, people change. And life gets better!
Fonda thinks about her legacy often—and not just in terms of film or fitness. "We all wonder what, if anything, we're going to leave behind. My ability to understand what my life means—to put it in a way that can be meaningful to other people—that's the gift I would leave behind. It's the strangeness of my life that is the most important thing about me, more than any particular part of my work," she explains.
"As I look back over my life, which I do a lot, I sometimes wonder if it was a mistake that I had so many other things besides acting," the actress confesses. "Would it have been better if I had focused more?"
After 1990's Stanley & Iris, Fonda didn't make a movie for 15 years. She founded the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential in 1995. While she found her work fulfilling, she didn't feel the same about her personal life. When she decided to divorce Turner, Fonda told him she craved true intimacy.
"People always say, 'Oh my God! How do you stay looking so blah blah blah.' I've had plastic surgery. I've talked about that. That doesn't matter. What matters is realizing you can always get better. That you have to keep taking leaps of faith. It gets harder as you get older. You have to stay brave and keep trying to go beyond your comfort zone and see what you need to get to become who you're supposed to be."
Fonda has stepped outside of her comfort zone with Grace and Frankie, debuting on Netflix May 8. "It's about the Zeitgeist," she says of partnering with the on-demand streaming subscription service. "You're not driving the Zeitgeist anymore. And guess what? That's just fine! But you have to settle into it."
Still, Fonda hasn't been this nerve-wracked since her twenties.
"It started maybe six or seven months ago. I have to be very intentional about keeping myself grounded and centered," the Coming Home star reveals. "I can fly off and become scattered and lose confidence."
Confidence in her work?
"In everything," Fonda admits.
Though her confidence recently began to falter, make no mistake: Fonda is still calling the shots. While writing her 2005 memoir, My Life So Far, Fonda re-watched her 1962 documentary, Jane, for the first time in decades. "I pulled the shades down and locked the door and drank some vodka and sat on the floor and shook like this," the two-time Academy Award winner recalls. "It was so upsetting to me."
Why let cameras in? "Those were the days when I didn't know how to say no," she says.
Today, Fonda isn't afraid to do what she wants, when she wants.
For example, the actress says, "I'll smoke pot every now and then.' That revelation comes with a caveat, of course. "I cannot see a movie on pot," Fonda explains. "The number of movies I've seen thinking, 'This is probably the best I have ever seen,' and then I'll see it again sober and think, 'What was I thinking?'"
For more life stories from Fonda—including how her appearance in 1968's Barbarella affected Richard Branson's circumcision and her thoughts on Hillary Clinton—check out DuJour now.