The risqué ‘Barbarella’ scene Jane Fonda was too shy to shoot: “I drank a lot of vodka”

Acting often means taking risks and accepting parts that leave you feeling vulnerable - even with the knowledge that the whole world might be watching. It’s a job that requires you to be brave, putting you into situations that you’d otherwise get nowhere near or ones that you perhaps wouldn’t want your family to see. For a young Jane Fonda, nerves got the better of her when she was asked to shoot a certain risque scene, leading her to down some vodka before the cameras began rolling.

It’s not uncommon for actors to have a few drinks before filming a nerve-wracking scene. From Fred Astaire in Holiday Inn to Jennifer Lawrence and some of her fellow cast members in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, actors have long reached for the bottle for various reasons, whether that be to aid a scene in which they’re required to act drunk or to simply relax them for a difficult shoot.

Fonda, the daughter of legendary actor Henry Fonda, emerged in the industry when she was young, following in her father’s footsteps. After starring in 1960’s Tall Story, she established herself in America before appearing in a string of European films. French cinema was considerably more welcoming of nudity and sex scenes than Hollywood at this time, and as a result of Fonda appearing in several erotically-charged movies - often working with her then-husband, Roger Vadim - she became known as a sex symbol.

While Fonda might have earned the label, she wasn’t always at ease with nudity and intimate scenes. When Vadim recruited Fonda for 1968’s Barbarella, an English-language movie adaptation of the comic book character popular in France, he required her to strip for the cameras, which terrified her. Despite the fact that, just a few years earlier, Fonda had become known for her nude scene in Vadim’s Circle of Love, this time around, she felt the need to perform her scandalous sequence under the influence.

Talking to Vulture, she admitted that she “didn’t like it at all when I was making” Barbarella, although she now thinks it is “fun”. Fonda explained, “At the beginning of the movie, I did a striptease in space. I was very shy, believe it or not, so I had to get drunk, and I drank a lot of vodka. The next day, when we saw the dailies, a bat kept flying between the camera and me. And we had to do the whole thing over again the next day — only I had a hangover.”

Yet, once she saw the final result, she realised that Vadim had not kept his promise about the sequence. “Vadim promised me it would be covered up with titles, and it wasn’t,” she revealed. “We aren’t married anymore!” The fact that Vadim went against his word is pretty disgusting, although it’s sadly hardly surprising for the time.

Barbarella was released to mixed reception, and these days, it seems to be better remembered for its iconic outfits, cinematography, set design, and Fonda’s nude scenes rather than any complex plot or a potent message.