Although she has more show business genes running through her body than any actress in Hollywood, with the possible exception of Drew Barrymore, she just doesn't look like a movie star off-camera.
In fact, in a room full of people, Bridget Fonda is the last person you would suspect of being one of the hottest young actresses in town. She has one movie, "Point of No Return," which opened Friday and a second film, "Bodies, Rest & Motion," coming out April 9.She seems so sweet and ordinary, particularly while politely munching on a chicken leg in the corner of the room, that your eyes naturally pass right by her. It's only on second glance that you realize the thin, waiflike woman trying to blend in with the scenery is Fonda.
Later, while describing the physical pain of playing her character in "Point of No Return," she nonchalantly pulls up her pants leg to show off her bruises. Somehow, you can't picture Julia Roberts doing that.
And how many famous actresses would be so open as to admit to loving the Three Stooges when she was a child and then jump uninvited into a Three Stooges impression, complete with fake eye gouging and nyuk, nyuk, nyuks.
"Not only is she such a real person off-camera, but she projects that kind of reality and warmth on-camera as well," said John Badham, who directed her in "Point of No Return."
"When you look at her on the screen, you see a real human being under there, and that's because she insists on honesty in her acting. She wants her moments to be real and believable and if she feels the moment is fake, she is very unhappy.
"She has great instincts about that honesty, and I learned quickly to pay attention to those instincts."
In the new movie, a remake of the 1990 French hit "La Femme Nikita," Fonda plays a low-life, drug-addicted street thug sentenced to be executed after a murder trial and then saved by a shadowy government agency that wants to redirect her talents and train her as a top assassin.
She undergoes a "Pygmalion"-like transformation under the agency's guidance, learning not only how to kill someone in a dozen different ways but which fork is proper to use for the salad course at dinner. Talk about your well-rounded education.
The role proved to be a breakthrough for French actress Anne Parillaud, who went on to star in the vampire movie "Innocent Blood," and Fonda said she wasn't sure she wanted to try to match that performance.
"Normally, I don't like remakes, and here I had the prospect of not only doing a remake but trying to do a remake of a movie that was really good," she said.
"I was scared, but that doesn't mean I wasn't going to do it. I thought about it long and hard, and in the end it was a character I just couldn't refuse. It was a rare part for a woman, the kind that doesn't come along twice, and I chose to do it for selfish reasons.
"I overcame my film snobbery about remakes, swallowed hard and decided to go ahead and see what I could do with the role. Anne was so incredible, but what the heck."
Badham said every actress in Hollywood younger than 30 wanted the role, and the studio initially balked at his choice. The studio apparently thought that Fonda could not handle the physical demands of the role.
"Frankly, I had never seen Bridget do anything physical, but I wasn't worried," said Badham, who also directed "Stakeout" and "WarGames."
"Richard Dreyfuss is the most unphysical person in the world. He even thinks of himself as a little old Jewish accountant. But in `Stakeout,' I made him look and act like a cop. I told the studio that I could do the same with Bridget."
Fonda said she trained intensely for weeks before filming but admitted that the shoot was fraught with pain.
"I was hurt a lot," she said. "My back hurt most of the time, and my body had bruises all over it. Most of the time, we needed makeup to cover the bruises."
Fonda - daughter of Peter, niece of Jane and granddaughter of Henry - has never shied from the tough roles. In her first film role, the 1987 movie "Aria," she spent most of her time on screen nude.
She later proved her ability to handle the difficult roles in films such as "Strapless," "Scandal" and "Single White Female."
"I like playing a character that you would be interested in," she said in describing her method of selecting roles. "If a character doesn't have some sort of edge, they aren't worth watching.
"If I can't find something special in a character, it's dull for me and it's dull for the audience."
Surprisingly, Fonda did not jump enthusiastically into the family business. Her parents split up when she was 7, and she went to live with her mother, actress Susan Brewer. She occasionally visited her father, but he usually was away filming movies.
"He was doing what I do now," Fonda said with a smile. "Maybe that's why I got into this business, to understand why he was gone so much when I was growing up.
"Now I do understand where he was, and I respect him for it. I respect his love for making movies, and I really admire him for that."
Fonda confesses that she wasn't much of a film buff when she was young, even though she was part of genuine Hollywood royalty, but a small role in a high school production of "Harvey" sparked an interest in acting.
"I was really bad in it, but there was a moment when a line I said connected with the audience and there was a big laugh," she said. "The taste of that tiny crumb was enough to make me salivate and try for years to get to that moment again.
"And it did take years to get there again. I think it was in `Strapless' that I felt that feeling again."
Fonda said overcoming the family name was daunting at first, but looking back, she thinks the fear of dealing with the instant name recognition may have helped to motivate her.
"I really think it spurred me on just so I could get past it. I guess I figured that if I could just do enough work, people would forget the name."
When it is suggested that it took no small measure of courage to tackle the obstacle of an important family name, she shakes her head.
"Some people might think it took courage to do that, but I tend to think it was more pig-headedness. That's more like me."