Fun with shtick and Jane

Jane Fonda’s back, and J.Lo’s got her as the prospective mother-in-law from hell.

After retiring from Hollywood 15 years ago, Fonda returns to movie theaters today with “Monster-in-Law.” She plays Viola Fields, a control-freak of a mom intent on keeping her son (Michael Vartan) from marrying an office temp (Jennifer Lopez) whose many jobs include walking dogs.

Fonda’s done lighter films before with such comedies as “9 to 5,” “Fun With Dick and Jane” and the sci-fi sex romp “Barbarella.”

But “Monster-in-Law” presents the two-time Academy Award winner goofing it up like never before, engaging in wild slapstick with Lopez and co-star Wanda Sykes, who plays Viola’s saucy assistant.

The movie comes after Fonda recently bared all in a memoir, “My Life So Far.” Its topics range from her activist days during Vietnam, her shift to aerobics and health-food advocate, and the men in her life, including father Henry and her ex-husbands, filmmaker Roger Vadim, activist-politician Tom Hayden and media mogul Ted Turner.

She discussed her return to the silver screen with The Associated Press:

Q: Why did you leave Hollywood and why are you back?

A: Fifteen years ago, I was truly not enjoying acting. I was finding it very painful. I was not happy.

I was sort of living in my head the way you are when you’re not happy and you’re in denial about it. And you can’t be creative that way.

It was just agony for me, and I wanted to get out of the business. Then I met Ted Turner, and that was that.

Fifteen years later, I’m totally different. And I thought, “God, I wonder if I acted again, if there would be joy in it again.” And then this character came along. And she just beckoned to me.

I’ve never played anyone like her. She was a lot of fun, and I did find joy in it. Thank God.

Q: Did you ever anticipate playing a character who says things like, “I could just kill that dog-walking slut,” or “It’s the flower girls. They’re drunk again. In the toilet,” and who passes out face first in a plate of tripe?

A: No. Isn’t it fun? I’m just so lucky. I never imagined it, but I’ve always loved physical comedy.

She’s certainly the most outrageous, over-the-top character I’ve played. Nothing is more fun than playing those kind of characters.

You don’t have to think about it. You just show up and plan to have a good time.

Q: You refer to some of the men in your life as alpha males. This movie really is two alpha females going at each other. Are alpha females becoming more common?

A: No, they’ve always been around. Totally. You just haven’t seen too many of them in movies.

Q: You and Jennifer get into a Three Stooges-style slap-fest. Who would win if you duked it out for real?

A: I don’t know why people are asking that question. Jennifer would. Because she’s younger.

But if Wanda came in the room, Wanda would wipe us both out. I think she could take us all down.

Q: Have you ever had in-law trouble yourself?

A: I’ve been married three times, and I’ve had three great mothers-in-law. I’ve never experienced it.

Q: In “On Golden Pond,” your own father plays your dad and gives your character’s future spouse a hard time. How was he with the men you brought home?

A: I had some boyfriends that he had some real problems with, and he let me know it. And it was really tense and horrible.

But he was alive through two of my marriages, and he seemed to kind of like my husbands.

I found out after he died that he had had a fascination with Ted Turner. He was a news junkie, my father was, and he was just fascinated by CNN and the person who started CNN and what he had seen of Ted Turner. … So it’s a regret he didn’t live long enough to see me married to Ted Turner, because I think he would have really been happy.

Q: Viola utters the line, “At my age, if it ain’t broke, you fix it before it is.” Do you find your years as a fitness and health-food guru are paying off as you get older?

A: Well, I think I look good for my age. I’ve always looked younger than I really am.

I’m 67, and I look about, maybe 62 or something like that. And I think my healthy lifestyle has paid off.

I suffer from osteoarthritis. That’s genetic and there’s nothing I can do about that except to try to not jump up and down, but rather swim and bike, instead of jumping up and down.

Q: Are you looking to do more movies?

A: I don’t care if I ever make a movie again. It would be fun, because I had a good time on this one, but I’m not looking to sort of rebuild a career in movies.

I’ve got a very full, interesting, wonderful life. …

I just don’t want to be scared anymore. I want to have a good time. That’s why I left the business.

Every year, I would just get more and more fearful that I couldn’t do it, I was losing it and losing the creative juices. It was just agony. Agony.

I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I had no intention of coming back. I didn’t miss it. I was very happy.

Q: There’s a remake of “Fun With Dick and Jane” coming out, and there’s been talk of a new “Barbarella.” What’s your take on remakes?

A: I think it’s scary. The things that make a movie like “Barbarella” work, it’s hard to get it back. Part of what made it work was the sort of jury-rigged charm.

There were no digital effects. It was not a very big-budget film, and that kind of contributed to what made it what it was. I don’t know today how they would pull it off.

Q: Speaking of Barbarella: Sex kitten or empowered female?

A: Ahh. It came just shy of being empowered female. Just shy. It was almost.

With a little tweaking, it could have been. And it would have been just as funny, and just as sexy, but it didn’t quite get there.

Q: What tweaking?

A: Well, you see, I have a whole theory about this. If Barbarella came from a planet that was so enlightened that they didn’t even know what the word war meant, and I was sent to the other planet to do away with evil, they got it wrong.

I shouldn’t have been the one that made love by taking a pill and touching fingertips. That should have been the planet of evil.

What Barbarella would bring to these other planets – they had forgotten intimacy. They were the ones that had never made love face to face, looking eye to eye and having their heart affected.

They were the ones that would take pills and touch fingertips. So Barbarella would bring love with her.

It just needed to be reversed.