Jane Fonda on ageing: "You could not pay me to be young again."

Jane Fonda, laughing in the face of ageing. (Image: Getty.)

As an actress, fitness guru and model, Jane Fonda’s career has flourished in youth-obsessed industries. So it’s refreshing to hear her unique views on ageing.

Newsflash: Jane Fonda bloody loves getting older, and wants everyone to know it.

“You could not pay me to be young again. I don’t care how much money I was offered, I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t like being young at all,” the 78-year-old told the Daily Mail.

And her reason? The insecurities and pressures of her youth created unwanted stress — a stress that she would never revisit.

“By the time I was 20, I hated how old I was then. At 30, I was ancient, I saw no future for myself,” Fonda explained.

“At 49, I said, ‘I’m going down a dark hole, I can’t be creative any more,’ and I quit acting for almost 16 years. I was just so old.”

Watch: Tips for dating in your forties and above. (Post continues after video.)

The doubts that Fonda experienced in her 20s and 30s are surprisingly relatable, even if she was a world-famous Hollywood star at the time.

The Barbarella star finally quit her extreme views on ageing once she gained a greater self-awareness and understanding.

“Then, after I turned 60, I began to understand who I was, and I became young again,” she says.

“Now I’m in sight of my 80th birthday and feeling pretty good about life!” (Post continues after gallery.)

No, Jane Fonda is not Benjamin Button-ing. She’s just got a brilliant approach to ageing, because it’s all about how she feels and not how she looks.

Besides, as Fonda told Lena Dunham in a recent interview for Paper magazine, she might be 78 but in her soul she’s “about 20.”

We can’t wait to hear more of her words of wisdom in the years to come.

How do you feel about ageing?