Peter Fonda in 2009Jason Merritt/Getty Images
Captain America is coming to Canada. At a benefit gala in Toronto on Sunday, Best Buddies Canada will be honouring Peter Fonda with its Legacy Leadership Award, which recognizes people for their philanthropic efforts and lifetime dedication to humanity. Fonda spoke to The Globe and Mail about the award, independent filmmaking and his late Easy Rider co-star Dennis Hopper.
How does it feel to be honoured by Best Buddies?
It's great. Those of our kids who are plagued by problems that we can't solve directly or quickly, they need help. We all need help, but they're the helpless ones and we need to give them all of our attention.
You're being honoured by Best Buddies for your support of youth and autism. Why are those causes you support?
I don't have one specific thing that I'm into in terms of disease and children. But if we were to spend a little bit more time on trying to figure out how [autism]starts, what's the genetic marker for this, we might be able to come up with a way of dealing with it.
You're still a very busy actor. What do you look for in roles now?
I look for ones that are going to succeed. And I mean by that they'll actually get funded and you'll be able to crank a camera on them. The industry has been socked by the rest of the downfall in business, because people are not lending money and movies cost money. And if they're not lending money, movies - independent movies - aren't being made. To me, the industry is going to have to go back to the Roger Corman or Easy Rider effect [of]'I can do better for less.'
Easy Rider is probably the independent movie of all time. What do you think of independent filmmaking today?
I'm all for it. I think that young filmmakers still have a desire to say something meaningful, not just to be successful, but to affect an attitude, to affect a nation, affect a culture. And any time we can do that it's important.
Were you in close contact with your Easy Rider co-star Dennis Hopper before he died earlier this year?
I wasn't able to talk to him in the last days, maybe because he wasn't able to get to the phone at all. But I will miss him. Now I can say that he's riding free. He's free of pain. He had introduced me to so many incredible things in the world of art and the artists who created them. He showed me a great many things.
You've directed three movies, the last of which was in 1979. Do you ever think about returning to the director's chair?
All the time. Especially when I find a story that has not been told and needs to be told. Generally it's something that needs to be awakened - shake a cage and make people say, 'What? What's going on?' There was a moment when the 'we,' the so-called anti-establishment people, stopped a war. Where did we go? Did we lose all the we's today to the fashion mags and TMZ and Paris Hilton? Are we so interested in whether Lindsay [Lohan]rsquo;s going to make it without a drink till next week that we're not going to say, 'and by the way, while we're at it, we've decided to stop the war in Afghanistan?'
Do you plan on seeing any movies while you are in Toronto?
Oh, yeah. I not only like to make movies, I like to watch them. If those two things don't go hand in hand, what are we doing making them?
Are there any films in particular that you're looking forward to seeing?
I'll see what catches my heart and brain. I'll know when I get there. It would be disastrous if I were to tell you now. I think that Toronto is one of the great film festivals because it's also a fabulous marketplace. And all young filmmakers need a marketplace.
This interview has been condensed and edited.