LILY Tomlin has always pushed boundaries. At 76, she’s starring in a buddy road movie, playing a gay grandmother helping her granddaughter get an abortion. Grandma was made by the guy behind About a Boy and American Pie. And she’s finishing season 2 of the Netflix hit Grace and Frankie in which she and Jane Fonda are hit with the news that their husbands are leaving them – for each other. Season 3 was ordered when season 2 had barely begun shooting.
Lily Tomlin was on the line from her home in Los Angeles.
Grandma is not the sort of quiet character study your peers might opt for! I guess not. I didn’t think it was so contentious. I liked her on the page. I thought she was interesting, and fun, and complicated. It’s hard to find roles that present grandparents as real people, not types. People in their older years don't often get a crack at stuff.
Your granddaughter has a lot to learn and she does, but what does your character take away from the relationship? There are three generations here, grandmother, daughter [Marcia Gay Harden] and granddaughter [Julia Garner] and we all learn we need each other and we get to a place with more understanding and more forgiveness and a more objective eye. My granddaughter has to learn to stand up for herself as I would want her to do, being the feminist I am.
Was there a moment when you learned to stand up for yourself? God, yes. I was 20. Working at a talent agency in New York. I'd gone there to be an actress but it was a lot harder than I expected. The women in the office were horrible. I was the office flunky and they'd send me across town in high heels – which we had to wear and I succumbed to the pressure – and I'd ask for cabfare and they'd say take the bus. Totally intimidated me. I had to take a pile of big old ledgers to the boss's secretary in with Amanda [name changed by Lily to protect the guilty]. Amanda sat there with her legs across the entrance, working the adding machine with the tip of her pencil and I couldn't get past. I'm standing there with these heavy ledgers.
One woman was more sympathetic but she still had to stay tight with them so she had someone to eat lunch with. I stood there for 10 minutes like a numbskull, unable to speak.
Finally, Gloria whispers “Amanda, let Lily pass”. Not missing a beat Amanda says “Let her speak for HERSELF!” It was an epiphany for me! As cheeky as I was, being outspoken and in showbusiness, she totally had it over me.
My head snapped around and I changed from then on. I never let anyone treat me like that again. One of them came to me years later and always wants tickets to my show! She acts like she doesn't remember the abuse she put me through!
Abortion is a rare topic for a movie, much less conversation. Your character says it's something you're gonna think about for the rest of your life; you make a decision and you have to own it. So why don't we talk about it? It's a very hard issue to deal with, to be open and accepting; I don’t know that anyone is but you can’t deny choice. You cannot deny the autonomy of a woman having jurisdiction over her own body. And then, you know, you have to live with it. And think of having a child that's mistreated or there's not the money to care for the child. The world is so inequitable.
There’s some hair-curling swearing in this but writer-director Paul Weitz says you had limits on what you would say. What were they? I do! I draw the line at denigrating body parts! I mean, I do it sometimes. You know, people call people assholes and I did say that; sometimes there's no better way to say it. People can be assholes, especially my granddaughter in the movie. But I kind of wince when I hear people denigrate someone with a body part. We all have them. But the truth is there's not much to replace these labels with!
![GRANDMA: With Julia Garner. "My granddaughter [in the movie] has to learn to stand up for herself as I would want her to do, being the feminist I am."](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/teCwykZsY7LPYLSSwU2GxV/133b8014-b7be-44b4-9373-a2040d77e3c3.jpg/r60_472_1171_1306_w576_h298_fmax.webp "GRANDMA: With Julia Garner. \"My granddaughter [in the movie] has to learn to stand up for herself as I would want her to do, being the feminist I am.\"")
When we get universal marriage equality will the gay community become complacent and lose its edge? It could happen. Everything gained is always on the board to be lost. I guess if we had universal marriage equality, aliens would arrive, different species, and then we'd have to start over, campaigning for equality. I'm kidding!
You and Jane Wagner resisted marrying for a long time – why did you change your minds? Partly because we could. And we also felt so many people in the gay community had been so supportive and had looked to us for some kind of move or something. Then we did and some people wrote editorials saying 'Now Jane and Lily are married should we get married?' [laughs]. We didn't even have rings.
Marta Kauffman – who created and wrote Friends – and Howard Morris must be thrilled to have such actors [Tomlin, Fonda, Martin Sheen, Sam Waterston] deliver their lines on Grace and Frankie. But you guys must also be thrilled to have such beautiful lines to deliver. Oh, we are. We're delighted there’s a show that employs four actors in their 70s. Jane and I wanted to do a show about older women for a long time. Something that really shows the situation. Women our age are ignored or dismissed or subjugated to second-tier. It's gratifying to be in the forefront of this show.
At the end of each show I know I've laughed but, even more, I know I've been moved. That's what we like too. As actors we like it when people laugh but we want to turn it on a dime and make you feel for the people we play. I'm glad you said that. It means a lot.
Grace and Frankie at netflix.com/au. Season 2 out May 6. Lily Tomlin is now shooting The Road Home, due later this year.
Enter to win Grandma on DVD here.
Read Ian’s previous interview with Lily Tomlin for Web Therapy with Lisa Kudrow here.
Read Ian's other interviews and reviews here.
