“The tube was so packed this morning,” says Hollywood actress Anne Archer, as she settles into her chair and begins our chat. She is a little flustered after tackling the chaotic rush hour on the underground this morning to meet me at the Park Theatre to discuss her latest play, The Trial of Jane Fonda.

“I came from Chelsea but had to wait three stops before me and my husband could even get on. I’ve spent a great deal of time in London over the years, but I’m still not used to the transport.”

The Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner, who starred in the movies, Fatal Attraction and Patriot Games, is spending the summer in Finsbury Park to portray another Hollywood icon in her husband Terry Jastrow’s new play.

In 1988, Jane Fonda was set to make a movie with Robert De Niro called Stanley and Iris, in Waterbury, Connecticut. However, the area was a hotbed of war veterans and they started boycotting the film because they knew she was in it.

She was facing controversy due to her visit to Hanoi 15 years earlier during the Vietnam War. She was photographed on an anti-aircraft gun, which caused outrage among Americans as it was a weapon used by the Vietnamese to defend their homeland from the USA.

She was dubbed a traitor and in order to salvage some of her reputation back, she met with 26 vets in a church hall in Waterbury and spent four hours with them alone, without any recording devices. During the meeting, many veterans admitted they only said what they did because they were put under pressure from their fellow soldiers.

Anne admits it took a while before she realised she wanted to play the lead.

She says: “The play was originally a film script but my husband Terry, who wrote it, decided it would work better on stage. He went to Hanoi and interviewed the same guys and interpreters she had used all those years ago and then to the exact places to the gun site where she was and wrote this fabulous play.

“I wasn’t going to play her at first as it was going to be a film and it was going to cover her when she was 27. He just asked me to do a table reading of the play one day, just to hear what it sounded like and I did it and realised this subject was important to me.

“We have six actors in the cast, who will all represent very different aspects of the military, including one who plays the Reverend who was a Vet in Vietnam and gave permission to use his church for the meeting. It is a very provocative story, we have a lot of digital mapping and you see all the battles and what went on.

“The story is a very important piece on why we are fighting these unnecessary wars and the cost of human life. Every life matters, no matter whose life it is and that is what the play is about.”

Jane met with Terry before he wrote the play to try and talk him out of pursuing the project, as it is still a sensitive subject.

Anne explains: “There is still a lot of hate out there and she just thought it wasn’t a good idea. She said it was very difficult for her to get used to being hated, as she was the Force’s sweetheart back then and I think the young men felt betrayed, she was their pinup girl but all of a sudden became the enemy.

Anne confesses that unlike Jane, she hasn’t felt the sting in the tail of the media and public backlash as she doesn’t read reviews or let people’s opinions affect her performance.

She says: “I find it best to not let negativity in. I’m part of the generation that is just learning to use Twitter and my favourite saying is “Opinions are like ****holes, everyone has one.” You have to remember that we now live in a world of opinion and traits like kindness, intellect and manners have been lost in social media.

"Manners are the way civilisation learned to interact centuries ago to prevent fighting and having endless wars with each other. Without manners you are just polarised from people and that links with the play too, as it’s about keeping the peace.

"More than 57,000 American soldiers lost their lives in the war but almost two million Vietnamese people died, which is staggering, as they didn’t even have back then the same sort of machinery and chemical weapons we have now that can wipe out an entire civilisation.

"We’re still fighting unnecessary wars and so I think audiences all over the world can view the play as a lesson for today."

The Trial Of Jane Fonda, Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, N4 3JP, until August 20, 7.30pm. Details: 02078706876, parktheatre.co.uk