This interview first appeared, in Italian, in a recent edition of V.F. Italia.

“Revolution begins in the muscles,” an expression often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, is Jane Fonda’s credo, one that she’s squeezed into a constellation of meaning.

Shortly before lockdown Fonda let her hair turn gray, and, in hindsight, she couldn’t have chosen a better moment. For her changing hairstyle and cut has never been a neutral gesture. In the ’60s she declared she had “hair epiphanies,” the first of which was when she returned to the U.S. from France, where she’d been director Roger Vadim’s trophy wife, and decided to give up her sex symbol tresses and invent the shag. Disheveled hair spoke volumes: She was ready for people to see her beyond her stardom, Hollywood lineage, and personal tragedy.

That haircut ushered in the era of Fond-as-activist, a role she still acts out fiercely even as she turns 83. Fonda’s new book, What Can I Do?: My Path From Climate Despair to Action, captures the energy of Fire Drill Fridays, the weekly protests she launched on Capitol Hill and for which she has been arrested.

V.F. ITALIA: Do you remember when you became an activist?

Jane Fonda: In the ’60s, I lived in Paris for a few years, where one of the people I hung out the most with was Simone Signoret (French actor, Oscar winner in 1960 for Room at the Top, ed.). She taught me about Vietnam, and she invited me to my first protest rally against the war. Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre also took part.

Do you feel like a different activist now compared to “Hanoi Jane”?

I’m 50 years older, and I hope I’ve become slightly wiser. I’m more experienced, and I’ve learned a lot from other activists and from the books I’ve read. I’m certainly less impatient. When I was young I thought that being an activist was like a sprint: running fast and finishing first. Later on I realized that it was more like a marathon, so I’ve tried to learn at a pace of my own. Now that I really am old, I’ve learned that it’s a relay race. I try to do the best that I can, but at a certain point I have to pass the baton on to somebody else.

To whom?

To the millions of young people all over the world who last year spoke up to increase the general awareness about climate change. It was a huge thing. When they shouted, “Don’t leave us alone. We weren’t the ones who caused all this,” we couldn’t not think that they were right. I said to myself, I have to do something. Plus, there’s something else I want to add about the activist I am today: I laugh much more.

Do you mean you’re more ironic?

No, I mean…I was so old when I was 20. My God! At 30, when I became an activist, I never smiled. I’d started this thing and it was all very serious, heavy. Now, instead, I know what’s most important is doing your best. Then I can die in peace, looking my grandkids in the eye and saying, “I did everything I could.”

You refer to yourself as a “repeater,” like one of the antennae positioned on hilltops to retransmit signals. You’ve said that all celebrities are repeaters. Do you still think that’s true?

Yes. It’s the reason why Joe Biden has turned to women like Kerry Washington, Eva Longoria, and Scarlett Johansson for support. He was clever to choose them because they are intelligent and popular women. Having celebrity on your side can be very useful.

You’re an “Elizabeth Warren girl.” What do you think about Biden–Harris?

I like them, and I’m working for them. I know a lot of young people who say, “Biden’s not Bernie Sanders. He doesn’t have his big new vision of the world.” But I reply, “Think hard about who you vote for because, whoever is elected, you’ll need to roll your sleeves up the following day and try to force him to do things that, perhaps, he won’t want to do. Therefore, isn’t it better to try to push a center man rather than having to deal with a fascist?” I say it to everyone: Vote for Biden, because we can work with him.

You’ve said that you have a certain “empathy” for Trump because, in some ways, he reminds you of your third husband, Ted Turner, the founder of CNN.

I don’t want to pass on the idea that Ted and Trump are alike. My impression, however, is that both suffered a trauma when they were kids. I became certain about Trump, and the fact that the cause was his father, after interviewing his niece Mary at Fire Drill Fridays. And since people who have been traumatized often speak a single language—a language of “bad actions”—I think that what we should hate isn’t so much the people, but what they do. Otherwise they win. Hate is toxic; it only hurts us. So yes, I feel sorry for him, even though I hate what he does.

Have you had other contact with the Trump family?

I know traumatized men well, and I know they need to be flattered and that they love beautiful women. So just after the 2016 elections, I thought, I’ll put together a group of beautiful, famous, sexy women who are interested in climate change. I’ll organize a meeting with Trump. We’ll all get down on our knees and we’ll implore him: “If you save the planet and stop climate change, you’ll become the world’s greatest hero and you’ll be loved by everyone.” I thought that beautiful women would convince him. So I called his daughter Ivanka to talk about the idea. She started laughing and told me that she’d think about it. She never got back to me. Of course the idea was a bit crazy, but back then I felt truly crazy.

Both President Nixon, during the Vietnam protests, and Trump, when you were arrested, have made fun of you for your activism. How do you compare them?

Trump is much more dangerous. You can’t reason with him; he has no sense of the institutions, laws, and values. He doesn’t understand history. He doesn’t care about anything other than himself and money. There were plenty of things that I didn’t like about Nixon, like his cruelty, but he understood history and he didn’t want to destroy democracy, which is clearly what Trump wants to do.

Is it true that behind your famous aerobics videos, which made $17 million, you were raising funds for campaigns organized by you and your then husband, Tom Hayden?

In actual fact, I’d always worked out because it made me feel good. Let’s say that in this case, I managed to combine political activism and vanity.

Your book What Can I Do? focuses on the Green New Deal, a package of climate reforms presented in 2019 by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey. In your opinion, what are the salient points?

First of all it’s a 14-page document that contains a vision. In substance it says that the U.S. government should spend a very large amount of money to create jobs in the sustainable-energy sector, not only solar panels or wind turbines, but also to protect water resources and restructure existing buildings to achieve maximum energy efficiency. Our country isn’t prepared to face the climate emergency; there is still a lot that must be done, but the state must decide to invest billions of dollars like it did this spring with COVID, showing that money can be found when there’s an emergency. The climate crisis might not be as evident as a pandemic, but it is an emergency. The Green New Deal is based on social justice.

As a long-standing feminist, do you think things have actually changed for women after #MeToo?

Yes. Many more women, and not just in the movie industry, now think about speaking out and pressing charges because they know they’ll be believed. And that’s very important indeed.

Older women play an important part in Fire Drill Fridays. Was this a deliberate choice?

Older women are braver. Firstly, due to hormones—the older you are, the less estrogen and the more testosterone you have. We become stronger also because, let’s be truthful, what do we have to lose? Secondly, and going deeper, women are less vulnerable than men when it comes to the obsession with individualism. I don’t know if it’s the same in Italy, but in the United States, Canada, and the U.K., individualism is one of the values underpinning society. But as individuals, we have no power. It’s only when we come together that we mean something. Women, for many reasons, are able to feel this with their bodies, in the same way that we understand collectivity and interdependence. We like to do things together, and when what we’re experiencing is a collective crisis, the solution has to be collective too.

In the ’70s you supported the Black Panthers movement. Comparing it with Black Lives Matter, you once said that BLM has a “sentiment of love” that the Panthers didn’t have. In what way?

The Black Panthers were a very ideological movement that believed in armed revolution. The leaders were all men dressed in black. I remember helping them to fundraise to get some activists out of prison. I was able to understand their reasons, but they scared me. I got to know Black Lives Matter four or five years ago when, in my mailbox, I found a flyer that explained “how an activist must take care of him/herself.” Never in my long life had I received a pamphlet like that from a political organization. So I found out more and discovered that they’d been established by some women, mostly artists. The vibes were very different, and I believe that it is because of this approach by the women founders that many white people also support and protest with them.

You’ve spoken openly about your bulimia when you were young, which was linked with your father and what you’ve called the “syndrome of craving pleasure.” How did you manage to get over it?

It was really hard, also because I wasn’t clever enough to contact a doctor or join a support group. But having almost reached 50, I realized that I couldn’t carry on like that. It was a matter of life or death. So I stopped. Exercising also helped me; it’s useful for staving off anxiety.

The 2018 documentary about you was titled Jane Fonda in Five Acts. Do you like all of your “Janes”?

Yes, even though some parts are still in the shadows. I always wanted to be somebody else, but if I compare how I was once with how I am now, I have to admit that I’ve never been happier. My body is abandoning me, but I’m happy despite that. It’s happening for a reason—I’ve worked really hard. I’m very proud for not giving up.

You’ve said, “It doesn’t matter who wins in November, but civil disobedience must become the new rule.”

If we look at the past, civil disobedience was the only weapon that truly changed a system. What I’m trying to do with Fire Drill Fridays is to involve people who have never done anything like this before. Do you know something? It’s all very interesting because the police arrest you, handcuff you, put you in prison, and you no longer have any control, and yet you feel so powerful—liberated for the simple fact that you succeeded in aligning your body with your values. A young guy once said to me that, watching documentaries about apartheid, civil rights, and women’s right to vote, where he saw people being arrested and hit, he’d always wondered, Would I have been that brave? We’re now in another time of documentaries. But we don’t have to ask ourselves that question anymore: This is the time to act.

All products featured on Vanity Fair are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

— November Cover Star Gal Gadot Is in a League of Her Own
— A First Look at Diana and Margaret Thatcher in The Crown Season Four
— Celebs Roast Trump in Rhyme for John Lithgow’s Trumpty Dumpty Book
— Brace Yourself for George Clooney’s Apocalyptic Movie The Midnight Sky
— The Best Shows and Movies Streaming This October
— Inside Netflix’s Latest Binge-able Escape, Emily in Paris
— The Crown’s Young Stars on Prince Charles and Princess Di
— From the Archive: How Hollywood Sharks, Mafia Kingpins, and Cinematic Geniuses Shaped The Godfather
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.