news. my name is ben bland. the headlines: the head of austria's conservative people's party is on course to become the world's youngest national leader, at the age of 31. sebastian kurz is in a strong position to form a new coalition government — but may have to rely on the far—right freedom party. police in somalia say the massive bomb blast in the capital mogadishu has killed at least 230 people and wounded hundreds more. it's the deadliest attack since al—shabab militants began their insurgency a decade ago. britain and ireland are bracing themselves for the arrival of hurricane ophelia, the most powerful storm ever to have formed so far east in the atlantic. the met office has warned of "potential danger to life" with strong winds, heavy rain and storm surges expected. it's hoped ophelia may weaken to a tropical storm by the time it makes landfall. now on bbc news in a special episode of hardtalk, stephen sackur speaks to the hollywood icon and activist, jane fonda. welcome to hardtalk with me, stephen sackur.

as part of our celebration of 20 years of hardtalk, i am joined by an audience here in the heart of westminster to meet a very special guest. the oscar—winning actor, activist and fitness guru, jane fonda. in a career spanning six decades, she has never shied away from speaking her mind. a trait not always welcome in the movie business, where sexism and abusive behaviour are currently in the spotlight as never before. so, how dark is the reality behind hollywood's glitz? applause. jane fonda, a very warm welcome to hardtalk. let me begin by asking you about the arc of your recent career because for a while it looked as though you have pretty much stopped?

yes, i had stopped, i had no intention of coming back. i left the business for 15 years, ten of them with ted turner, who needs to have a job when you're with ted turner? it is too interesting, too much going on! and then five years writing my memoir and then i decided i could maybe find joy in acting again. what drew you back? what gave you that belief that you could still enjoy it? the process of living with ted for ten years and writing my memoir! he taught me ever so much. and he gave me a lot of confidence and then writing my memoir taught me a lot also about myself and about life. and ijust wanted to take on the challenge of acting again. do you think you had forgotten some of the frustrations that had perhaps encouraged you to stop acting in, i guess, it was around 1990? it was all from inside me.

it had nothing to do with what was going on in hollywood. when you have been in the business as long as i have, you get used to it. including the sexism and all that. well, i want to get to the sexism but let's start with ageism, actually, because you have also said that the movie business does not cater for the ageing demographic? your face and the faces of people who are growing older are simply not properly represented. i think it is changing, although it is very slow. older women are the fastest—growing demographic in the world. and so they'd do well to begin to countenance us when they decide what to make and so forth. i think that the growth of television has been very helpful. it is a much more forgiving medium, it is a smaller screen for older faces. and you have a very successful netflix series? very successful.

with lily tomlin, grace and frankie. two old broads! who have been left by their husbands? that's right. and ijust wonder, this sort of content is easier to make today, do you think, than ever before? in terms of what producers and the money men are prepared to invest in? there has been the golden girls, there have been movies of older people, there have been television stories. but grace and frankie, partly because we have such fun and such spunk, even though we are older, we go into the business of making vibrators for older women! because, you know, arthritis! you have to have something where you don't have to move your wrists around a lot! and the numbers of the speed have to be big enough so you can see it at night! it has to be lit up. things like that. we have fun with the fact that we are older and it is that that i think people of all ages are really enjoying. the fact that we have a good time. i can tell you, that's not content

that we get on hardtalk too often! well, let me be the first! let me ask you about the movie industry... they'll probably cut it out! no! i guarantee you we will not. you havejust made a movie and i have seen it. speaking of old people, you mean! speaking of old people... you and robert redford, you famously made three movies in the 70s, that established you ? starting in the 60s and 70s. you were one of the most glamorous screen couples one could think of. barefoot in the park? yes. and you have come back with robert redford to make a new movie. our souls at night. it's beautiful, it's called our souls at night. based on the book by kent haruf. it's a lovely story about two people in a tiny little town in the great plains.

they kind of know each other but not very well. it's about friendship and companionship. we're both widows. and i know there is not that much time ahead of me and i don't want to spend it being lonely. and so i have the guts to walk over to his house and knock on his door and say, would you come over and sleep with me? laughter. and he looks shocked. well, it's not about sex. no, it is aboutjust talking, lying in bed and talking. because it is so hard now to be by yourself. and so very, very slowly we bare our souls at night. and it develops into a real love and it is just beautiful. and it is getting great reviews. you sound so enthusiastic about the work you are doing right now, but we speak at a time when the movie business, hollywood, is under such intense scrutiny because of an extraordinarily dark, horrible underbelly that we see within the industry. and, of course, the thing that i am referring to most directly is the scandal, the slew of accusations surrounding harvey weinstein. thank god it is being talked about.

this is hardly unique in hollywood. it is very common, just as it is in every country of the world, in every aspect... in business, government, it is the entitlement of too many men and it is epidemic and when they are famous and powerful like harvey, then it gets talked about. and so it is really important that those women have been brave enough to come out. indeed, a sort of logjam has broken and the accusations... of course, he is denying all of them that concern nonconsensual sex. like bill cosby, they always deny it. nonetheless, you say that people are speaking out and they are now. but the problem is there was silence when it is clear that people knew of these behaviours but did not talk in public about them

for year upon year. why? why don't they talk about it? because he's powerful. because they are scared. who are the women that he preyed on? and preys on? young woman. most of these women were in their 20s when it happened. vulnerable, afraid that if they say anything or do anything, it will ruin their career. i found out about it a year ago and i wish that i had spoken out. why didn't you? well, it didn't happen to me. i understand that, but nonetheless... i didn't want to expose... and i will admit that i should have been braver. and i think from now on, i will be when i hear such stories. but the interesting thing is, you are one of the most outspoken activists in the movie business. indeed, in the creative industries in the united states. i am just wondering why, when you reflect back on it, why you felt it wasn't right that you could not speak about a year ago when you heard a lot of this stuff?

i think it is because if i had, i would have had to out someone who wasn't prepared to speak out. she subsequently has. if it had happened to me, i would. it has happened to me but long, long ago. i have known harvey, i was already old by the time i met harvey. and harvey or bill or any of those predators, they go for young people. iam old. but you are scared because you feel like you are not going to be able to have a career, you will never work again because they have so much influence. but there is another reason that is even more insidious, that you won't be believed. it is very hard to come forward when you have been a victim of sexual abuse because you get dragged over the coals, you have to prove, you have tojustify... we have to start believing these women and standing up and standing for them and protecting them. because it seems the system in hollywood did encourage complicity. there were people, and it has to be said, some women as well as men, who turned a blind eye, who knew what was going on.

because he was so powerful. yes. let's not keep saying hollywood. you know... what should we say? the world. the world of business, and science, of academia, of government. this is rampant. it is kind of an escape to say it's a hollywood promise. it was true of bill cosby. there were people at his network who knew that he was being supplied by girls all the time and did not speak and it has to do with, he brings in the money and he is very powerful so you keep your mouth shut. i hope that what is happening right now, maybe it is becoming more of a big deal because we now have a president who we know does the same thing

or did the same thing. and so it is coming out. so let this be the beginning, the time that if it happens to us, we speak, we believe those who speak and if we are men, we side with women and help and support us. and if you are a predator, stop doing it. one thing i should add, bill cosby, i believe, continues to deny the many allegations... so does... they all do. what are they going to say? yes, it's true, i did all these horrible. . ? of course they are going to deny it. sure, we just need to get that on the record. what i want to get to with you on this subject, because you have throughout your life spoken your mind. but as you alluded to in that answer to me, you didn't go public with abuse that you suffered and also i think in the past you said you were fired from jobs because...

onejob, i got fired... i couldn't even be a secretary. i got fired as a secretary because i wouldn't sleep with the boss. but i had one experience with a french director who was going to cast me in a role that required that the character have an orgasm and he said that in order to know whether i should be cast, he had to find out what kind of orgasms i had! and i was 21. i didn't say anything, i did laugh. i got the part, although i didn't give him what he wanted. i didn't say anything. it never even occurred to me that i could in those days. i am talking 1959 or 60. one of the things that struck me was that the weinstein issue, that statement in which he said, when i was growing up or when my behaviours were established, it was a different era. he talked about the 60s and 70s being a different time. it was a slightly odd statement because obviously the behaviours that he is now in such deep trouble for are much more recent, so it wasn't about the 60s and 70s for him. but i wonder whether you believe,

with the span of your career, that things have changed very much? in this gender dynamic, in the power relationships that exist and the abuse and harassment, has much changed? no. and i amjust... i hope that we all hope and do everything we can to make this so... that with this coming out about harvey weinstein and about bill cosby and about the man who is currently our president... that men will not feel that they can get away with it. and that other men will stand up for us and that women will be brave enough, including myself, to speak. i hope this is the turning point. let me ask you more generally about your activism, because i think it is true to say that even in the 60s, when you were making your way

as an actor and by the late 60s and early 70s you had tremendous success. . . but you were always determined to leverage your acting but use it in some ways as a platform for activism on civil rights, on a whole bunch of issues and, of course, ultimately the major stand you took on vietnam. more, actually, than feminism. was it because you felt that those things at the time were more important than feminism? it took me so long to be able to say that i am a feminist. an embodied feminist. first, it meant that you were against men and then i felt it was an issue that sidetracked... i remember... i was not always an activist, i came out late in life and i remember it was during the vietnam war,

there were women demonstrating for the right of reproductive choice and i wrote in my diary that it is such a diversionary issue! it took me a long time to understand, because if you have grown up with it, that is to say, misogyny, kind of feeling that you have to look a certain way in order to be loved or cared for... i was always in relationships where i felt i had to be the way they want me to be. with men, you mean? yeah. i have never had problems with women. that is why now i am only... it is just me and my girlfriends. we will get back to feminism. i want to briefly switch to vietnam. it was such a turning point for you. you became, for a while, a sort of bete noire for a lot of people in the united states who accused you of treachery because of the visit to hanoi, the infamous photograph of you with the anti—aircraft weapon. i wonder if, still, inside you, there is a sense

of regret about that? i don't regret going to vietnam. the united states was bombing the dykes from north vietnam, earthen dykes in the red river delta. if the dykes had given way, according to henry kissinger, somewhere around 2 million people could have died of famine and drowning. and we were bombing and it was not being talked about. and i thought, well, i'm a celebrity, maybe if i go and i bring back evidence... and it did stop two months after i got back, so i am proud that i went. it changed my life. all for the good. the thing that i regret is that on my last day there, i made the mistake of going to a ceremony at an anti—aircraft gun, it wasn't being used, there were no air planes or anything like that... there was a ceremony and i was asked to sing and people were laughing and so forth. and i sat down and laughing and then i got up and as i walked away i realised, my gosh,

it is going to look like i am against my own country's soldiers and siding with the enemy. which is the last thing in the world that was true. i had spent years working with the veterans and soldiers. and then i made coming home in order to try to show what these men were dealing with when they came home. but the image was there. do you feel that, to a certain extent, change the perception of you forever? in the united states, in particular? nothing but rocks last forever, and not even rocks. not forever. and i get letters, right even until today, i get letters on my blog, because i am active on social media, from veterans who say, i used to hate you but i realise now... blah, blah. and iforgive you. and it makes me so happy. notjust for me but what i realise is that they understand now. and you use the word hate

and there was hate for a while. there was some extraordinary things said. we don't need to go there. i get letters all the time from people who say i want to urinate on your grave. i know about that kind of thing. horrible stuff. what i want to do is think about what is happening in america today and ask you this... what is the best way, do you think, for artists, particularly famous artists, and let's face it, actors are the top of the tree, they are very famous people... what is the best way to leverage that public platform to be a successful, effective campaigner? because we have seen in the recent past, a lot of actors declaring their antipathy towards donald trump. but trump seems to thrive on that. and he talks about hollywood elites and these coastal people who don't understand the real america. i wonder what you think the best way is of campaigning, of being politically active today?

it is going to the districts. like in california, it would be the southern part of california, san diego, the central valley. and as part of an organisation, not as individuals, and being trained and knocking on doors and talking to people who aren't like you. people who voted for trump. and asking them why. and asking, what matters to you? what would you like to see change? if i may, do you think the grandstanding and the big declarations at awards ceremonies, and i guess i am thinking of meryl streep at the golden globes, do you think that way of delivering an anti—trump message is effective or not? i don't know. all i know is that, and i say this as a dyed—in—the—wool democrat,

the democratic party has failed us. the clintons failed us. and in a way, the obama administration... they have all neglected the very people who voted for trump. who used to be the base of the democratic party. these people are in such pain. and they are so angry. some of them are just — forget about it, they are white supremacists, they hate, they are filled with things... you don't even talk to them. but there is a lot of other people, for example, who voted for obama twice, and then voted for trump. these are people whose identity has been taken away, their factories, that used to pay them a good union wage, that they could support theirfamily on. they are gone. who are they? they are now working in restaurants, they cannot make ends meet, etc and so forth. they need to feel that people are hearing them. can i ask you a simple question?

are you proud of america today? no! but... i am proud of the resistance. i am proud of the people who are turning out in unprecedented numbers and continue over and over again to protest what trump is doing. i am very proud of that core. in the nfl today, the national football league, there is a huge controversy about those players who are so angry about race politics in the united states today and particularly black players, that when the national anthem plays at games, they, for the time being, are determined to take a knee, do not stand for the anthem but take a knee. if you, jane fonda, were in a situation like that today... i would take a knee, i would take two knees. i would get on all fours if necessary to call attention. and trump is manipulating it to make it have something to do with the military.

it has nothing to do with patriotism, it has nothing to do with the military, it has to do with the fact that racism is so alive and well in the united states... but so many of those americans you say you want to reach out to, listening to your answerjust now, would say, jane fonda, she is still betraying our nation, disrespecting our flag and our military. she hasn't changed, she is still that hanoi jane. there are some people who feel that way. but the only way that i know to do it is to knock on doors and some people may not want to talk to me but they are curious, because what is a movie star doing here? and you go in and they talk about that and so one thing we know, you don't talk against trump, you don't talk against fox news, we tell them something that they didn't know. like... and ijust flipped a woman in san diego, which means she was going to vote for trump again and she changed her mind... because she is a single mother with four children

and a sick mother. and she is for trump. but when she found out what happens to her family if trump's health care went through... she was like, oh my god, i didn't snow. —— know. here is a wonderful quote from you and i want you to reflect on it and tell me what it means to you right now. you said... when i turned 60, i entered my third and final act. i decided i needed to heal a lot of wounds that were in me. i didn't want to come to the end of my life without doing all i could to become a whole, full voiced woman. are you that woman today? well, i am a work in progress but i am headed that way! and as you said to me earlier, is that a woman whose life now doesn't need... to put it bluntly... to be connected to a man, in a partnership or marriage?

i totally do not need to be connected to a man, no. totally do not. and will not? i don't think so, no. but that doesn't mean... i have friends in their 80s and 90s who are still going at it! and, god bless them, it is not over, it is just me personally, i have been through three husbands and a number of lovers. that's it, over. ijust got a new house! unfortunately, we're running out of time... and you just ended with that marvellous "it's over." and i guess i have to say, this interview, unfortunately, is also over. gosh, there is so much left to say! applause. will you come back? thank you. hello there. fairly quiet conditions out there at the moment. on monday, things turn more stormy to the west of the uk, especially in northern ireland. the met office has already issued an amber be prepared warning for strong winds from monday afternoon. damaging and disruptive gusts are expected. the worst will be

in southern ireland. ophelia, an ex—hurricane, moves towards the shores. the met service in ireland has issued a red warning. danger to life and property across the entire country. the wind will steadily strengthen in the west. scotland will have rain come and go. dry conditions in england and wales. the winds start to pick up through the irish sea in particular as we go into the afternoon. western parts of wales, the isle of man, northern ireland, parts of south—west scotland in particular. we can see winds in excess of 80 miles per hour in a few spots. that will cause loose debris to fly around and travel disruption. only part of the story, of course. on monday, rain across the board in ireland. cool conditions in scotland with outbreaks of rain. england and wales, away from western coasts, blustery day but quite a warm and sunny one, 23 degrees. evening rush—hour, midlands, northern england, gusty winds. the strongest of the wind in the north. the low pressure system will transfer to northern scotland. these areas could see 60—70

miles per hour winds. they could cause disruption. temperatures holding up into tuesday morning. through monday and tuesday, just a reminder, some problems around, notjust with transport, power supply problems as well. check for warnings on the website and on the bbc weather app. the strongest winds will go down on tuesday. outbreaks of rain continue in scotland and northern ireland. a cold day there. england and wales, a lot of dry weather. light winds, hazy sunshine. feeling pleasant, even without the tropical layer of monday. later in the day, rain spreads in through the english channel. this system willjust go north through tuesday night into wednesday. the warmest air confined to east anglia and the south—east. wet weather in southern counties of england. on wednesday, the midlands into northern england, south—easterly winds, the heaviest of the rain in the east of the pennines. part of eastern scotland as well. western areas, dry and bright. still feeling cool away

from southern counties where it will be pleasant. overall this week, a stormy start to the week. things turn quieter but stronger winds as well. this is bbc news. i'm tim willcox. our top stories: hurricane ophelia's set to hit ireland within hours. a "potential danger to life" from what could be the country's worst storm in 50 years. austria elects the world's youngest leader. but will 31—year—old sebastian kurz forge a coalition with the far right? crunch time for catalonia. the leader of the spanish region must tell madrid this morning whether or not he's declared independence. for sale. a somewhat tarnished used airline! buyers are invited to bid for italy's troubled flag carrier, alitalia, before the deadline runs out today. and as china prepares for its 19th communist party congress, worries are growing over the country's mounting debt pile.