<\/p>\n
\n\tJane Fonda<\/a>\u2019s latest role is one she\u2019s been playing for over half a century: Activist.<\/p>\n \n\tIn Gaslit, a new documentary<\/a> premiering Thursday at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival<\/a>, the actress explores the environmental toll of the liquefied natural gas boom in Texas and Louisiana. The film, which was financed and produced by the environmental group Greenpeace, tracks the consequences of the in-demand fuel, sometimes called LNG, on local communities and environments. The export of liquefied natural gas has been linked to high greenhouse gas emissions and health risks for nearby communities.<\/p>\n \n\tOn a prolonged road trip, Fonda joins two self-described \u201cmethane hunters\u201d in West Texas to observe otherwise invisible emissions with an optical gas imaging camera. She meets with a cattle rancher who sold a property that had been in his family for generations after he claims nearby oil extraction polluted its water. She chats with community organizers who argue that cancer rates have skyrocketed in their areas due to nearby industry. Actress Connie Britton and musician Maggie Rogers appear at certain stops, lending their incredulity to what they\u2019re seeing.<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s just the latest example of environmental advocacy from Fonda, who in 2019 launched regular climate change<\/a> protests in Washington called \u201cFire Drill Fridays\u201d \u2013 an event series at which she was arrested<\/a> several times. In 2022 she founded a Political Action Committee<\/a> (PAC) dedicated to defeating candidates who are allied with the fossil fuel industry.<\/p>\n \n\tIn an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actress discussed why the film homed in on liquefied natural gas, the effect that President Donald Trump\u2019s Environmental Protection Agency has had on communities she covered and how celebrities can be effective as activists in 2026.<\/p>\n \n\tHow did you become involved with this film?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI\u2019ve been a climate activist for quite a number of years, and in 2019 I joined up with Greenpeace to do what we called Fire Drill Fridays<\/a>. It was starting in 2019, with Greenpeace\u2019s help, that I became aware of the fact that the most climate damaging work was happening on the Gulf of Texas. It was potentially the greatest concentration of substances that would damage the atmosphere \u2014 what they called [a] \u201ccarbon bomb.\u201d And it was happening because of fracking that was going on in the Permian Basin.<\/p>\n \n\tThe fracking, which began under [former President] Obama, it\u2019s very destructive. It pollutes the ground, the water and the air and releases a huge amount of methane. This is then piped down to the Gulf where it is turned into liquid, frozen to [less than] minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit and then put into ships. And all along that way there\u2019s leaking and then it\u2019s shipped to places around the world. It\u2019s destroying local communities and it\u2019s destroying the atmosphere and it\u2019s the number one problem in the world right now. We managed to pressure Biden into calling for a pause in the export [approvals]<\/a> of this LNG, liquified natural gas. Do you remember when Trump had a gathering of fossil fuel CEOs at Mar-a-Lago before he was reelected? He [reportedly] said<\/a>, if you give me a billion dollars, I will remove all the regulations. The number one thing they wanted was to remove the pause on the export of liquified natural gas. This is what they are all for, this is where they\u2019re going to make their money, at the expense of Americans. So we decided to do a film to explain to people what is going on.<\/p>\n \n\tYou\u2019ve been a climate activist for quite some time. Did anything particularly surprise while making this film?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI learned so much. I mean, starting at the very beginning, the extent to which methane is leaking absolutely rocked me. I had no idea. There\u2019s this activist named Sharon Wilson who has a camera that you can look through and you can see what the naked eye can\u2019t see, like gas. When I went down there, Sharon took me out to where there were these huge tanks. You look at the tanks and it\u2019s like, what\u2019s the problem? No problem: Sunny day, beautiful blue sky. And then you look through the camera [and there are] hundreds of feet high billowing clouds of methane. Now methane, [advocates] said, well, methane doesn\u2019t last as long as carbon dioxide and stuff, no, but it\u2019s 80 percent more damaging to the climate over a 20-year period. So in terms of the climate crisis, 20 years is important. We don\u2019t have a lot of time to try to rectify what\u2019s happening. So that\u2019s one thing I realized was how terribly damaging methane is and how much fracking causes it to leak into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n \n\tThe film also features Connie Britton and Maggie Rogers. What do you think those celebrities brought to this project and the issue?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWell, they\u2019re both environmentalists and they\u2019re both very good friends of mine. What we all hoped, and they hoped, was,that they bring more eyeballs. Connie, for years, she was in that huge hit Friday Night Lights. She was embedded in that world, and so I really wanted her to come back and to see it through the eyes of the people whose lives are being destroyed. And it really had an effect on her. Maggie is Gen Z, and I wanted to encourage young people who might be followers of hers to want to watch. She\u2019s such a soulful person.<\/p>\n \n\tHow has President Donald Trump\u2019s second administration affected the possibilities for the communities that you covered in the film?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI mean they [activists in these communities] felt that they had the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, that they could possibly get help from. I will have to say it wasn\u2019t super good the help they were getting, but now it\u2019s zero. They have nowhere to turn now except public pressure, I think. And it\u2019s desperately needed and that\u2019s why the film I think is really important.<\/p>\n