-I´m honored that you´re here. Welcome to the show.
-Well, thanks very much. And thanks for inviting me.
-Oh, please. You can come on whenever.
You are the subject of this documentary, "Jane,"
just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.
Is it -- Is it weird for you to see a documentary
about your life?
-Well, you know, there have been many.
And when it was first proposed, I thought,
"What, another documentary about the chimps back in the ´60s?"
[ Light laughter ]
I couldn´t imagine that there could be anything new.
But when I watched that,
more than any other documentary I´ve seen,
it took me absolutely back into those days.
And there´s footage that kind of disappeared
and there´s footage that hasn´t been seen before,
taken by my then-husband, Hugo van Lawick,
and it´s really -- I mean, there I am,
a young girl with these extraordinary chimpanzees,
whom I got to know so well.
-Yeah. I mean, do -- do you remember, like, what --
When you were first -- when you first were there
and you go, "This is what I want to do."
I know you had that since you were a little girl.
But you´re there, you´re in Tanzania,
and I got to spend some time at your research center.
-Yes.
-And it is -- it is --
I mean, I was frightened when I met the chimps.
Because I don´t know -- I went up and they smell --
They have like a perfume-y smell to them, don´t you think?
-Well, it´s a -- to me, it´s a forest-y smell.
Unlike the gorillas, who kind of stink like a sweaty person.
[ Laughter ]
-The chimpanzees aren´t like that.
-It´s perfume-y or something. It´s pungent. It´s something.
I remember going -- really hiking up this trail
and we were hiking up a long hike,
and I almost couldn´t even do the hike.
And by the time I got to the top, I´m --
I smell these chimpanzees and I see two of them
and one of them starts going like...
[ Mimicking chimpanzee ]
Screaming and I go...
-[ Mimicking chimpanzee ]
-Oh, yes, that´s exactly what they did.
[ Laughter ]
And I was like, "He didn´t -- He´s not a fan of my movies."
That´s what I immediately thought.
But the ground was kind of rumbling.
If anyone lives in the city, it´s like the subway rumbling.
Anyone who lives in the jungle, it´s like a chimpanzee --
Is it yelling? What do you call that?
-Pant-hoot. -Pant-hoot.
-Yeah. -What are they doing there?
Just saying that they´re the alpha?
-They´re just saying hello.
Well, there´s different kinds of pant-hoots,
and probably the one you heard
was two males greeting each other or --
It could be -- I don´t know. I wasn´t there.
[ Laughter ]
-What would have -- What should I have done, if anything,
if they saw me or -- I didn´t make eye contact.
First of all, I was eating an apple before I went up.
And the guy that was working there,
the scientist that was there said, "Don´t bring your apple."
Because I was just going to toss it
because, you know, it´s just an apple core.
[ Light laughter ]
But he´s like, what if -- like, what are you doing?
What if a chimpanzee picks up an apple
or maybe the apple becomes a tree?
I´m like Johnny Appleseed.
[ Laughter ]
I´m bringing apple trees to Tanzania.
Never happened.
-You know, chimpanzees will not eat anything they don´t know.
So if an infant -- they´re the curious ones --
I think they start new cultures.
If an infant had gone up to sniff and try your apple core,
the mother would almost certainly have hit it away.
"That´s not food."
-And I would have been passed out.
I mean, laying on the ground going -- I was so scared.
But it was the most beautiful thing.
And if any of you -- I want to bring --
I have two little girls now. This is since I´d been there.
They´re 4 and 2.
But I don´t if -- I think they´re too young to go there.
-They´re too young. -Yeah.
But what would you tell them
if you could give them one word of advice?
What do you tell the future generations?
-Well, that´s why I started this program, Roots & Shoots,
which is encouraging -- it´s inspiring young people.
They get to choose projects to help people, to help animals,
to help the environment. -Yep.
-We don´t tell them what to do.
So they can, you know, whatever they´re passionate about.
Someone to help dogs, someone to help street children.
It´s amazing how young people have different passions.
-Roots & Shoots. -Roots & Shoots.
-Yeah, we worked with those guys.
-Rootsandshoots.org. And it´s in 100 countries.
-And we have members from preschool through university.
And it´s changing the world.
These young people, when they understand the problems
and you empower them to take action,
then they are changing the world.
And, my goodness, don´t we need to change the world?
-Yes. Yes, we do.
[ Cheers and applause ]