Jane Fonda was excited about my vacation.

Strange as those words are to type, they became true on the last day of August. The golden afternoon sun was slouching west as I logged onto Zoom to see the Hollywood icon staring back at me. Slightly starstruck, I introduced myself and stuttered something about how special today was for me I was interviewing the Jane Fonda, then heading to the airport for a short trip to Oslo with my wife.

Fonda smiled. I love the people of Norway, she said.

Those people are different, its like their sharp edges are gone, she said. Its what happens when you live in a country where the government takes care of you and sees you and respects you and people feel safe.

Its the kind of thing shes always wanted her compatriots to see for themselves.

Right around the time she starred in such films as Barbarella and Fun with Dick and Jane, Fonda became the face of feminist rebellion , a renegade whose political provocations would include visiting North Vietnam at the height of the United States war effort, raising money to bail Black nationalists out of jail, and facing arrest alongside Indigenous activists.

Unlike other movie stars so ensconced in elitist comforts that the U.S. appeared to be a shining city on a hill, Fonda decided early on that she wanted to be at ground level, on the frontlines of the political struggles that would define American life in the early decades of hegemony. It came as an epiphany shortly after she paid the deposit for a hilltop rental home in New York, which she had chosen in part for its potential for hosting fundraisers.

I dont want to be a person who lives on a hill and doles out money, the Grace and Frankie star recalled on a recent afternoon. I want to be on the bottom with people who were raising money for.