‘Book Club: The Next Chapter’ ponders the question: Do we choose our own fate?

Imagine going on an Italian holiday with several of your best friends, for work! That’s what Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen, and Candice Bergen got to do for their new film Book Club: The Next Chapter, and filming was just as fun for the trio as you think it would be.

“It never felt like work to me. It was pure pleasure,” Bergen tells ABC Audio.

Fonda echoed the same sentiment adding, “We went out for meals together. We ate pasta and gelato all the time. It was a blast.”

“Our Italian crew was amazing,” Steenburgen adds. “And then I have my dream team I get to work with. So it was just, it was heaven.”

In the new sequel, the trio’s characters go on an exciting Italian holiday, and in the process discover a lot about themselves and why they are where they are in life. A central question in the film is “Are we where we are because of fate, or do we make our own fate?”

“We have to steer our own way, deciding where we want to go. That’s what I believe,” Fonda shares. 

Steenburgen believes she’s in control, but once in a while leaves things up to a higher power.

“I don’t leave much of anything up to fate,” she begins. “I believe it’s important to have your eyes open and try to listen to the universe. I believe it’s important to have your eyes open and try to listen to the universe. But listen to your own soul. I do believe in angels. So I kind of occasionally ask for a little guidance.”

Meanwhile, Bergen says she has one guiding philosophy in her career when it comes to the roles she picks: “I don’t work with schmucks.”

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