Leading Ladies Sharon Stone Jane Fonda and Alfre Woodard
Leading Ladies Sharon Stone, Jane Fonda and Alfre Woodard Movies for Grownups
Indeed, when it comes to disrupting aging, Fonda, 78, Woodard, 63, and Stone, 58, are living proof that your . Last year, Fonda earned a Golden Globe nomination — her 15th — for her turn as a survival-minded leading lady in Paolo Sorrentino's movie Youth. And May saw the premiere of Season 2 of , a Netflix odd-couple series in which Fonda portrays a type A, late-in-life divorcée who opens her home to her free-spirited friend (played by Fonda's real-life pal Lily Tomlin) when their husbands fall in love with each other. Meanwhile, Woodard and Stone are about to become very familiar to the highly sought-after comic-book-film crowd: Woodard's character is a villain in Marvel's anticipated Netflix series Luke Cage; Stone has been cast as a superhero — she'll only reveal that her secret power is heat — in a yet-to-be-named movie, also for Marvel. When asked what has surprised her about getting older, Fonda says she's happier by far. She's more candid and emotionally resilient, and she has forged closer relationships with her two children — Vanessa Vadim and Troy Garity — as well as with her two grandchildren, her friends and her boyfriend of seven years, music producer Richard Perry. "If you'd told me when I was 20 or 30 that I'd be happier at 70, I would have said to you, 'You're out of your mind,'" Fonda says. The daughter of Henry Fonda, she dropped out of when she was 18 to pursue, like him, a career in show business. "At 20, I was so old — I was cynical, hopeless, drifting through life. Same at 30. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know who I was." Because she has lived a large-screen life, it seems fitting that Fonda's epiphany about growing older began to gestate in the cargo bed of a cowboy-filled pickup truck on her way back from helping round up bison on then-husband media mogul Ted Turner's New Mexico ranch. It was the day before her 59th birthday. "I thought, Holy cow — in one year, I'll be 60. I probably won't live much past 90. That means next year will be the beginning of my third act." Fonda notes that in the theater, the final act is the one that can make sense of the first two. She decided to do what she called "a life review," dedicating the next five years to analyzing her past as a way to discover what she wanted to do next. By the time she'd finished her research, her marriage was over, and she'd taken up temporary residence in her daughter Vanessa's tiny house in Atlanta. The two-time Oscar winner (for Klute and Coming Home), who had retired from acting in 1991, would soon write a memoir called My Life So Far and realize she was ready to return to show business. Her first third-act role was playing Jennifer Lopez's brittle nemesis in 2005's . Fonda hasn't stopped working since. Her next project will reunite her with Robert Redford — their last film together was 1979's — for a Netflix adaptation of the best-selling novel . Alfre Woodard, 63: "Age is what you decide you want it to be. I am still in motion here." BACK IN LOS ANGELES, as the funk-inflected sounds of New Orleans' Trombone Shorty spill from a loudspeaker, Alfre Woodard begins swinging her hips to the beat. Married to screenwriter Roderick Spencer for 32 years, she has two adopted children — Mavis, 24, and Duncan, 22. For Woodard, it's the intangibles that have come into focus as she has aged. "You're a mess in the first act, going on instinct and bravado," she says. "I'm better now at all the things you can't touch with your hands. I'm more discerning. My joy is deeper and less shakable. My craft is really fine-tuned." To further her point about why the experience of the mature trumps the energy of the young, Woodard answers the rhetorical question "Who would you want in charge when it comes to an unpowered emergency water landing on the Hudson River?" "I'd want Sully landing my plane," she says. "No panic. Been there, done that. Just relax." AARP Members: Born in Tulsa, Okla., to Constance, a homemaker, and Marion, an interior designer, Woodard could have thrown in the towel when she moved to Los Angeles more than four decades ago and was repeatedly told there were no roles in Hollywood for African Americans. Instead, she has won four Emmys, three for guest appearances on TV series (The Practice, Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law) and one for her starring role as a small-town nurse in the acclaimed TV movie about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, Miss Evers' Boys. (For proof of her gift for turning in magnetic, delicately observed performances, regardless of the size of the role: She has been an Emmy nominee a record-breaking 18 times.) The West Coast transplant readily adopted California attitudes toward health, fitness and aging. "It's that, 'You're only as old as you feel,'" says Woodard, who recalled being dumbfounded as she listened to classmates at her 15-year high school reunion talking as if their best years were over. "People had just recently turned 30 and were already complaining about their knees and saying things like, 'At our age …' 'At your age' what? I'm a friend of [actor-director] Norman Lloyd, who, for God's sake, is 101 and playing tennis and has a beautiful girlfriend-companion. Age is what you decide you want it to be. I am still in motion here." Sharon Stone, 58: "I don't think we have to accept the assignment of aging, that all of a sudden you're supposed to be dowdy, with a really bad hairdo and wear Easter candy-colored clothes."
Leading Ladies Sharon Stone Jane Fonda and Alfre Woodard
Three screen icons beat Hollywood' s ruthless ageism by changing the game
(Video) Owning Your Age with Sharon, Jane and Alfre: Sharon Stone, Alfre Woodard and Jane Fonda explain how their approach to work has changed, how sex is different now and more. ON A PERFECT CALIFORNIA AFTERNOON in early spring, and are deep into a far-ranging conversation that skips from purifying cleanses to the late conservative commentator The women are passing the time in a sculpture-filled home in a tiny neighborhood as they wait for the third member of their trio to join them. Then, suddenly, makes her entrance, gliding into the room in white, figure-hugging trousers, a matching fitted jacket and a see-through lace blouse that reveals a fair amount of cleavage. "Woooooooooo!" shouts Woodard approvingly. "Look at you!" enthuses Stone, who a few minutes later asks Fonda about the famously rigorous exercise program she developed in the early 1980s — especially as it pertains to her butt. "Yours looks so great," says Stone, lifting up the back of Fonda's jacket and peering appreciatively at the older actress's pert derriere. "I've done your workout a million times over the years and look at me." "Well," Fonda shoots back. "You have other things." Jane Fonda, 78: "If you'd told me when I was 20 or 30 that I'd be happier at 70, I would have said to you, 'You're out of your mind."' And with that, they're off and running. We gathered together these three accomplished, opinionated women to talk about the radical idea of in Hollywood, of seeking out roles that illuminate their wisdom and experience, of the joys and difficulties of sustaining their careers through the decades. As they strike a pose in front of the camera, the ever-feisty Stone sums up their collective mood by punching a fist in the air and hollering cheerfully, "We're alive, and we're still working, motherf---ers!"More On Owning Your Age
Indeed, when it comes to disrupting aging, Fonda, 78, Woodard, 63, and Stone, 58, are living proof that your . Last year, Fonda earned a Golden Globe nomination — her 15th — for her turn as a survival-minded leading lady in Paolo Sorrentino's movie Youth. And May saw the premiere of Season 2 of , a Netflix odd-couple series in which Fonda portrays a type A, late-in-life divorcée who opens her home to her free-spirited friend (played by Fonda's real-life pal Lily Tomlin) when their husbands fall in love with each other. Meanwhile, Woodard and Stone are about to become very familiar to the highly sought-after comic-book-film crowd: Woodard's character is a villain in Marvel's anticipated Netflix series Luke Cage; Stone has been cast as a superhero — she'll only reveal that her secret power is heat — in a yet-to-be-named movie, also for Marvel. When asked what has surprised her about getting older, Fonda says she's happier by far. She's more candid and emotionally resilient, and she has forged closer relationships with her two children — Vanessa Vadim and Troy Garity — as well as with her two grandchildren, her friends and her boyfriend of seven years, music producer Richard Perry. "If you'd told me when I was 20 or 30 that I'd be happier at 70, I would have said to you, 'You're out of your mind,'" Fonda says. The daughter of Henry Fonda, she dropped out of when she was 18 to pursue, like him, a career in show business. "At 20, I was so old — I was cynical, hopeless, drifting through life. Same at 30. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know who I was." Because she has lived a large-screen life, it seems fitting that Fonda's epiphany about growing older began to gestate in the cargo bed of a cowboy-filled pickup truck on her way back from helping round up bison on then-husband media mogul Ted Turner's New Mexico ranch. It was the day before her 59th birthday. "I thought, Holy cow — in one year, I'll be 60. I probably won't live much past 90. That means next year will be the beginning of my third act." Fonda notes that in the theater, the final act is the one that can make sense of the first two. She decided to do what she called "a life review," dedicating the next five years to analyzing her past as a way to discover what she wanted to do next. By the time she'd finished her research, her marriage was over, and she'd taken up temporary residence in her daughter Vanessa's tiny house in Atlanta. The two-time Oscar winner (for Klute and Coming Home), who had retired from acting in 1991, would soon write a memoir called My Life So Far and realize she was ready to return to show business. Her first third-act role was playing Jennifer Lopez's brittle nemesis in 2005's . Fonda hasn't stopped working since. Her next project will reunite her with Robert Redford — their last film together was 1979's — for a Netflix adaptation of the best-selling novel . Alfre Woodard, 63: "Age is what you decide you want it to be. I am still in motion here." BACK IN LOS ANGELES, as the funk-inflected sounds of New Orleans' Trombone Shorty spill from a loudspeaker, Alfre Woodard begins swinging her hips to the beat. Married to screenwriter Roderick Spencer for 32 years, she has two adopted children — Mavis, 24, and Duncan, 22. For Woodard, it's the intangibles that have come into focus as she has aged. "You're a mess in the first act, going on instinct and bravado," she says. "I'm better now at all the things you can't touch with your hands. I'm more discerning. My joy is deeper and less shakable. My craft is really fine-tuned." To further her point about why the experience of the mature trumps the energy of the young, Woodard answers the rhetorical question "Who would you want in charge when it comes to an unpowered emergency water landing on the Hudson River?" "I'd want Sully landing my plane," she says. "No panic. Been there, done that. Just relax." AARP Members: Born in Tulsa, Okla., to Constance, a homemaker, and Marion, an interior designer, Woodard could have thrown in the towel when she moved to Los Angeles more than four decades ago and was repeatedly told there were no roles in Hollywood for African Americans. Instead, she has won four Emmys, three for guest appearances on TV series (The Practice, Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law) and one for her starring role as a small-town nurse in the acclaimed TV movie about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, Miss Evers' Boys. (For proof of her gift for turning in magnetic, delicately observed performances, regardless of the size of the role: She has been an Emmy nominee a record-breaking 18 times.) The West Coast transplant readily adopted California attitudes toward health, fitness and aging. "It's that, 'You're only as old as you feel,'" says Woodard, who recalled being dumbfounded as she listened to classmates at her 15-year high school reunion talking as if their best years were over. "People had just recently turned 30 and were already complaining about their knees and saying things like, 'At our age …' 'At your age' what? I'm a friend of [actor-director] Norman Lloyd, who, for God's sake, is 101 and playing tennis and has a beautiful girlfriend-companion. Age is what you decide you want it to be. I am still in motion here." Sharon Stone, 58: "I don't think we have to accept the assignment of aging, that all of a sudden you're supposed to be dowdy, with a really bad hairdo and wear Easter candy-colored clothes."