What if luck was an actual thing? Meet Sam Greenfield, the world’s unluckiest person, who suddenly finds herself in the Land of Luck, where she must unite with magical creatures to, hopefully, turn her luck around. In this Goggler exclusive, we spoke to Luck‘s Jane Fonda about being lucky and how she goes about deciding which projects she takes on.
Umapagan Ampikaipakan: Do you consider yourself a lucky person? Do you believe in good luck and bad luck?
Jane Fonda: I think that what this movie is saying is that it’s not a binary situation where things are black and white. There’s bad luck and there’s good luck, and they they kind of are two sides of the same coin. Good luck makes no sense if there isn’t also bad luck and vice versa. And bad luck, as the movie says, can bring you good luck. It can teach you lessons. If you allow yourself to learn them, you can grow because of experiencing bad luck.
You know, I remember working with Katharine Hepburn in the movie On Golden Pond, and she said to me, “it’s your failures that teach you the most.” And I think that’s true. So I believe in both. They are both a part of life and they go together.
UA: It’s very rare that we get to any get to speak to anyone who can talk about the time they worked with Katharine Hepburn. So that’s pretty awesome.
JF: I could tell you stories you wouldn’t believe. (*laughs*)
UA: Oh my God. I want to hear all of those stories. But alas we don’t have that kind of time.
UA: So speaking of good luck and bad, what kind of role has it played in your life?
JF: I was lucky to be born. I was lucky to be born into privilege. I’ve benefited from the fact that I’m white. I’m famous. I’ve always worked. But my father was an actor, so I’ve never been poor. So you can call all of that luck.
Someone once said that luck is a preparation meeting opportunity. For some people, opportunity comes along, but they don’t know how to seize it and create luck from it because they may have other issues and problems that they’ve never really addressed and worked on. So in a way, as you go through life, you have to work on yourself. You have to prepare yourself to take advantage of opportunity when it comes along. And I have done that.
I have had a lot of bad luck, but I have worked hard to learn from the bad luck and to grow from it, and to be ready to make the most of opportunities when they can come along. And I continue to do that. I continue to try to make myself someone who can seize the good in situations and learn from that.
UA: You’ve had such a long, and illustrious, and storied career. How do you decide what you want to do these days? Why Grace and Frankie? Why Luck? What moves the needle for you?
JF: Well, I’m getting old. I’m soon going to be 85, so wanting to get into the voice animation business makes sense. It doesn’t matter how you look. It doesn’t. You can have a bad hair day. It doesn’t matter. It’s just your voice. So this is a good thing for an older person to do. So that’s one thing. I also love animated movies, and I’ve always been fascinated by how people use their voices to bring characters alive.
Aside from that, of late, I’ve wanted to do things that were positive, that made people feel good, and that made people laugh. That showed that older women are still able to have a good time and make a difference. They’ve been mostly women centered. But you know, I won’t do anything violent. I don’t like a lot of special effects personally. Although I love Top Gun. Oh my God. It was so good.
UA: Yes ma’am, that was a great movie.
JF: Boy, I want to work in things that are fun. You know, life’s too short, especially for me. I don’t have that much time left, so I want to work with people I like. I just finished working in Italy for two and a half months. And I love Italy, but a lot of the time it was 104 degrees. So I do not want to work anymore when it’s a place where temperature is going to be a problem because that’s going to be the way it is if we don’t do something very quickly.
So yes, I like doing something that makes a difference, something that makes people feel good, and where it’s not 104 degrees.
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