Jane Fonda blogs about This Is Where I Leave You movie based on Jonathan Tropper's book

Image credit: Dutton/Penguin Books

How did I miss this! Back on May 15th  I blogged about the making of the movie This Is Where I Leave You based on Jonathan Tropper's eponymous novel totally missing the fact that Jane Fonda was playing Judd's newly widowed mother. And was blogging about it on the very same day. I had no idea Jane Fonda was online ... she's on twitter too. I just love that!

It wasn't until I actually started reading the novel yesterday and got to Judd's description of his mother and went online to find out which actor was playing her that I realized my major brain lapse. 

Check out how Tropper - who wrote the script as well - has Judd describe his mother in the novel ...

"Her hair, gray at the roots and auburn everywhere else, is pulled into a tight bun. Her black suit is formfitting and, as always, she's showing way too much surgically enhanced cleavage. The height of her stiletto heels, like the diameter of her breast implants, is inappropriate for both her age and the occasion."

Add the fact that this scene takes place at her dead husband's funeral AND that his mother is a very famous child psychiatrist and celebrated parenting book author, and tell me Ms. Fonda isn't perfect for the part ...

Jane Fonda, "This Is Where I Leave You" director  

Shawn Levy and Tina Fey (Fonda's daughter Wendy)

Image Credit: janefonda.com

To read what Fonda herself has written about her first day of shooting on the movie -and a lot more cool stuff - at janefonda.com

Here's a snippet where she talks about working with Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Adam Driver and Corey Stoll who play her kids.

I feel like a Martian. Their rhythm, what they laugh at, even their language all seem foreign to me which is intriguing and just how it should be for the film. The mother (me), a tad narcissistic, has sort of lost touch with her kids emotionally — though she’s full of love, she doesn’t understand them, nor they her.

I love that she's not only not afraid to use her own feelings of being an outsider in their ensemble in her work; she actually embraces the challenge.  

Jane Fonda in Klute

I have to admit to a Fonda bias because I met the legendary liberal actor back in the early 70's at a party celebrating the mistrial of Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case. I was a blithering starstruck idiot blurting that I loved her in Klute and wanted to be just like her. I recall her laughing - not unkindly - and reminding me her character was a call girl. 
Oh, it was horrible. I have no idea what I was talking about. Didn't then and I still don't, unless I meant her character's stunning wardrobe or chic shag haircut. Or perhaps I meant I wanted to be just like Fonda, the beautiful activist actor -I would have definitely said 'actress' back then, I'm going to try to use the gender neutral term 'actor' more often these days - who had it all. I'd like to think the latter but I don't know ... my 20 year old self would have loved to rock Fonda's look in Klute!

The film doesn't have a release date yet - it's still shooting - but I'll keep you posted.