Mary Steenburgen reflects on a piece of advice from Jane Fonda that has stayed with her for years, emphasizing the importance of being intentional with relationships and aging.
Mary Steenburgen is reflecting on a piece of advice from a friend that’s stayed with her for years—and it came from none other than the iconic Jane Fonda. While speaking with PEOPLE on Friday, January 2 about her role opposite husband Ted Danson in season two of Netflix’s A Man on the Inside, Steenburgen, 72, recalled an early moment in her friendship with Fonda, 88, that reshaped how she thinks about aging—and relationships in general.
“When we became friends, I remember her almost walking out the front gate and then turning around, looking at me and saying, ‘Are we going to be friends?’” Steenburgen shared. After answering yes, she remembers Fonda pushing further: “‘Now don’t just say it by rote. Are you going to be intentional? We’ve got to be. Because at my age, I have to be intentional.’”
The message landed with the Melvin and Howard star immediately. “And I looked at the fierce, insanely gorgeous blue eyes and thought, ‘I see what she means,’” Steenburgen said. “I see the intention behind them because there’s a clock, and you don’t know how long you have. But as you get older, it’s shorter.”
That idea of intention, she added, has become central to her life—from choosing who she spends time with to being honest about what truly matters. “Aging, it actually makes it more interesting,” she said. Fonda also offered another piece of advice that stuck, too. “‘Don’t take your foot off the gas pedal. Push it down harder. Harder now.’”
The two actresses first worked together on the 2018 comedy Book Club, later reuniting for Book Club: The Next Chapter, with their off-screen friendship has only deepened since.
That sense of purpose also shows up in Steenburgen’s marriage. She and Danson—who met on the 1994 film Pontiac Moon and married the following year—have built a life rooted in routines and humor. These days, that includes a 4:30 a.m. ritual tackling Wordle, Connections, and Spelling Bee together. “We’re bright enough to do these games together,” Steenburgen previously revealed to PEOPLE in December 2025, adding that between them, “we each have half a really amazing brain.”
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