Wednesday 10 August 2022 06:40 PM Jane Fonda says Monster-In-Law with Jennifer Lopez was 'the biggest stroke of ... trends now

Jane Fonda declared this month that acting in the 2005 movie Monster-In-Law was 'the biggest stroke of luck' that revived her career.

She took 15 years off of the movies after she married media mogul Ted Turner but made her comeback with Monster-In-Law in the wake of the divorce.

'It was the only smart career thing I ever did,' the 84-year-old told the Daily Mirror during a new interview. 'I thought: "People are going to come to the movie to see J-Lo, but they’ll rediscover Fonda," and that’s what happened.'

Said Jane: 'The biggest stroke of luck was getting the role in Monster-in-Law at a point in my career when I had been out of the acting business for 15 years or more.'

She explained that the film 'was with Jennifer Lopez, and it was a great comeback for me. I was almost 65 years old when I got this script out of the blue.'

Jane continued: 'The producer was a friend. We hired someone to rewrite my character and that is what became the great mother-in-law role in that movie.' 

In Monster-In-Law, Jane stole the show as the villainous mother of a doctor played by Michael Vartan, who gets engaged to J-Lo. 

The picture featured a top-flight cast ranging from Wanda Sykes and Will Arnett to Broadway legend Elaine Stritch, who played Jane's own difficult mother-in-law.

Monster-In-Law marked Jane's first movie since the 1990 feature Stanley And Iris, which starred her as a grieving widow finding love again with Robert De Niro. 

She left the entertainment industry during her marriage to movie mogul Ted Turner, whom she now describes as her 'favorite ex-husband.'

During her documentary Jane Fonda In Five Acts, she discussed the problems with the marriage, noting: 'Ted can't be alone and so my whole life had to be about him.'