Jane Fonda shares French director wanted to see what her "orgasms were like” for a movie

As an actor and an activist, Jane Fonda has been navigating the whims of powerful men for decades now. She’s long since become a leader and an icon in her own right, but that doesn’t mean she was never subject to the grim realities that women tend to experience in those worlds. (“If I wasn’t on the arm of an alpha male, I felt very vulnerable,” she told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year.) For instance, she, too, had to fend off advances from filmmakers twice her age, like Joy House director René Clément.

During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live, Fonda was asked in a game of “Plead The Fifth” to name “one man in Hollywood that tried to pick you up once that you turned down.” The Oscar winner named Clément, who was more than 20 years older than the then-27-year-old Fonda. She explained, “Well, he wanted to go to bed with me because he said the character had to have an orgasm in the movie and he needed to see what my orgasms were like. He said it in French and I pretended I didn’t understand.” Reacting to host Andy Cohen’s shock, she added, “I have stories for you, kid, [but] we don’t have time.”

No doubt Fonda has seen it all in her long career, but the biggest evolution seems to be that there are more women behind the scenes on film sets. She cited intimacy coordinators as another major improvement, telling THR in January, “What a difference it would’ve made in terms of my comfort,” she says. “I missed out on that one. It’s hard even to describe the difference when you’re the only [woman] on a set, literally the only.”

Reflecting on the impact of the #MeToo movement, Fonda said to THR, “What is so unfortunate is that it took movie stars. It saddens me, but it didn’t surprise me. Black women came forward long ago, and it didn’t get the attention. But at least now, it’s talked about.”

Of course, Fonda has a unique vantage to assess social movements. “A lot of people in the beginning thought [#MeToo] went too far, canceling and all that kind of thing,” she said. “All movements do in the beginning. They all do. They can’t be perfect out of the box. But it has emboldened women to speak. I honestly don’t know if it’s caused men to think twice. I really don’t.”