{"id":514346,"date":"2026-06-23T12:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/514346\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T12:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:59:08","slug":"how-jane-fonda-came-to-star-in-katie-camosys-gaslit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/514346\/","title":{"rendered":"How Jane Fonda Came to Star in Katie Camosy’s ‘Gaslit’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt is not everyone who can say Jane Fonda<\/a> stars in their feature directorial debut, an honor Katie Camosy boasts in \u201cGaslit.\u201d The documentary follows the iconic actor and activist as she takes a road trip through the oil and gas fields of the Southern U.S., visiting communities most affected by the air and water pollution produced by the refineries that have taken over these towns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking with Variety ahead of screening the film at the Raindance Film Festival<\/a>, Camosy says the first seed of inspiration for the film came through her decade-long work with the leading environmentally-focused network Greenpeace<\/a>. The director joined the organization back in 2015 as a video producer, going on to collaborate with Fonda for their \u201cFire Drill Friday\u201d series. In 2022, the duo took a trip to Texas to learn about liquefied natural gas, with their findings leading Camosy to believe there was a clear story to tell about what was happening in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGaslit\u201d became the first feature-length film produced by Greenpeace USA, with the director praising the organization for supporting the documentary \u201cwhile also not trying to dictate what it is or isn\u2019t.\u201d \u201cThat freedom allowed us to showcase people from all ends of the political spectrum,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

\n\tTalking about the advantages of having Greenpeace\u2019s backing for the film, Camosy highlights the network\u2019s wealth of archival footage and expertise. \u201cGreenpeace spent a lot of time in Texas and Louisiana in the 1980s and 1990s, and you\u2019ll see footage from that time period in \u2018Gaslit,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cThere were so many incredible moments of discovery. I remember when our editor, Laura Franco Velasco, found archival footage of Herbert from Mossville, someone we\u2019d already interviewed in the present day, which showed him with the cattle he talks about losing. This kind of footage proved invaluable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for getting Fonda on board, Camosy says the two have \u201calways collaborated well,\u201d but the relationship developed with \u201cGaslit.\u201d \u201cWe spent countless hours in pre-production, poring over research and shaping the narrative through the communities we\u2019d visit. Jane did so much research on her own and always came to meetings with new questions and ideas. Our collaboration continued on set and during the edit. I could tell how much it mattered to her that we tell this story properly and do right by the people in the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s pretty wild to direct an icon like Jane Fonda in my feature debut, but Jane didn\u2019t mind,\u201d adds the director. \u201cFor her, it\u2019s all about the work and getting the best result. I can\u2019t think of a better mentor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about the level of visibility a name like Fonda\u2019s brings to a film, Camosy says having someone of \u201cJane\u2019s stature\u201d in \u201cGaslit\u201d \u201cmeans a lot more people will see it than would have otherwise.\u201d \u201cJane actually acknowledges this at the beginning of the film when she explains that her celebrity affords her a spotlight, and she is using it to shine a light on the people and issues in \u2018Gaslit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOther major names such as \u201cNashville\u201d star Connie Britton and singer Maggie Rogers are featured in the film, an idea that came from Fonda herself. \u201cThey\u2019re friends of hers, and Connie\u2019s involvement made sense because of her history with Texas filming the \u2018Friday Night Lights\u2019 TV series and movie,\u201d adds Camosy. \u201cConnie loves Texas and was shocked at how it\u2019s changed over the years. Maggie was also eager to see the region for herself and meet people like Jo Banner of Wallace, Louisiana, who\u2019s fighting back against the oil and gas industry to protect her community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCamosy reiterates \u201cclimate stories are human stories\u201d and that we are undergoing a moment when \u201cmost of us are distrustful of billion-dollar industries, especially when our health and livelihood are at stake.\u201d \u201cFossil fuels are inherently connected to stories of war and to new technologies, and we\u2019re seeing a lot of people become fed up with data centers and volatile energy costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo decades ago, Camosy spent months in London capturing the underground music scene at the English capital for what she hoped would be her first feature documentary. How does she feel presenting her long-gestating directorial debut in the city after all this time? \u201cQuite emotional,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve learned so much in these 20 years, but in many ways I feel like the same filmmaker who\u2019s trying to document specific people in a specific place during a specific time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is not everyone who can say Jane Fonda stars in their feature directorial debut, an honor Katie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2472,93,113491,61,60,21744,270,198206],"class_list":["post-514346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-documentaries-to-watch","tag-entertainment","tag-greenpeace","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jane-fonda","tag-movies","tag-raindance-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}