Hollywood icons Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Mary Steenburgen and Candice Bergen took to the baby blue carpet in New York City on Monday to celebrate the premiere of their upcoming movie Book Club: The Next Chapter.
“I never thought when I was like in my 20s or 30s that, at almost 86, I would still be doing this,” Fonda tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It feels pretty great.”
Despite there not being as many projects focusing on older people, director and co-writer Bill Holderman says he loves seeing these actors and actresses onscreen, so he doesn’t understand why there aren’t more movies and TV shows about them.
“They, to me, they’re some of the most inspiring people on the planet, these four women,” he tells THR. “But it’s also it’s like, they’re great actors. Why wouldn’t you use the talent that we have?”
Co-writer Erin Simms echoes that statement, pointing out that when Book Club came out in 2018, people were surprised that it did so well, but she says that it makes sense that it was a movie that audiences were excited about.
“It’s a movie I want to see,” she tells THR. “They have fans from every age. Everybody loves them. Everybody wants to see them onscreen.”
The co-writers also open up about the writers strike and their hopes for a speedy resolution, with Fonda stressing the importance of joining guild members on the picket lines and providing them with financial support.
“The solidarity we’re seeing between all the guilds and all the teamsters, everything is amazing,” Holderman says. “Hopefully it’ll be done soon. We’re sick of it.” Adds Simms, “Hopefully Hollywood will realize how important writers are, and that’s where it all starts. And we wanna feel supported, and we wanna feel like ideas reign supreme, because they do. … Ideas are all we have. So, hopefully, they conclude the same thing.”
Grace Truly, who makes her feature film debut in Book Club: The Next Chapter, says that being from London, she doesn’t have as much insight into the strike as an actress in the United States would, but she acknowledges that people go on strike for a reason, and Hollywood should listen.
She says, “Hollywood can’t survive without its writers.”
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