Lily Tomlin on Being Ignored, Forgetting Her Age, and Eating Bread Onscreen
In Netflix's Grace and Frankie, Lily Tomlin grapples with something eternally relevant: how to begin your life over. As Frankie, an artist with hippie tendencies, she is forced into a new world when her husband comes out as gay and ends their marriage. The show, co-created by Friends mastermind Marta Kauffman, found a huge audience of all ages when its first season premiered last year, and Tomlin, who stars opposite her longtime pal Jane Fonda, found her role offered a surprisingly poignant look into the lives of older women. Here, ahead of the show's second season premiere on May 6, we chat with Tomlin about how she came to be Frankie and what it means to have a TV show deal with issues of aging.
How was this role initially presented to you?
My agent called me and said, 'Are you and Jane Fonda looking for something to do together?' I said, 'Well, we are now.' It was one of those flukes. Jane and I, I don't think we'd ever seriously considered a series coming our way at this point in our lives. But we always wanted to have something to do that reflected our age and talked about the problems of aging and the discounting of older people. All the things that older people, who are the same people they were 30 years before, have to contend with now-and women, especially. We wanted something we could talk about and explore those issues, so the fact that Marta came to us was amazing. She had had us in mind, apparently.
Why do you think there are so few shows on TV about people over the age of about 40?
There are a lot of shows on HBO and Netflix and Showtime that deal with an older demographic. Maybe not older, but they are certainly more egalitarian in terms of dealing with people who are professionals in their forties and fifties. I watch a lot of those shows. I watch all the Netflix shows-House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black. So I think there's a little more attention being paid to deeper, more serious subjects with older protagonists. But I think we're the only show totally devoted to the issue of aging and those complications.
What issue of aging felt more important to tackle in the first season?
The discounting of older women. We did that in one of the episodes where we went to a supermarket in the first season and the young guy who was manning the cash register didn't acknowledge us. We're screaming and shouting and trying to get his attention and he doesn't hear us or see us. He sees a real voluptuous young girl come in and gives all his attention to her. There's just so much of that. It's not funny. But it's all this stuff about women having to start over. Having the rug pulled out from under them. We finally get around to finding a way to levitate ourselves, rather than fall on our behinds. I'm really the age of Frankie, but I always forget it.
You do?
Well, because her life just doesn't seem realistic to me because it's not what I'm about. But I can see myself somewhat reflected in the eyes of society.
Even if she's not much like you, what do you admire about Frankie?
I like that she's playful. That she's serious about trying to do something and be a good artist. She's a little bit pixelated, in a way. She doesn't take too much too seriously, but suddenly she'll pull up on you and take your situation seriously and try to comfort you. And I like the way she dresses and I like her hair. I think she's interesting, fun. I like a lot about her.
As an actress, did you expect to get a role like this at this point in your career?
No! I didn't. I never thought about it in terms of rejecting or accepting the possibility, but no, I don't think I did. I was going to do another Broadway show. I still do concerts and stand-up all the time. I thought I might get another series, but I didn't know what it would be and if it would be meaningful. I didn't think I was going to be without employment. But I didn't think I'd have a series and certainly not one on Netflix.
What does it mean for you to have someone create this for you?
It shows me that Marta knows me better than I do. I said to her in the beginning, 'Marta, I don't know if I can play Frankie.' I pictured Frankie as much more exhaustive. More of an Earth mother. That's somewhat exhibited in her hair-and the hair I can do because I can wear a wig. I said, 'Nobody's going to believe that I eat all the time. Or that I eat bread.' And she'd say, 'If they don't believe she eats a lot of bread then she'll just have to eat it onscreen.'
Now that Frankie has gone through so much in season one, will we see her in a happier place in season two?
Yeah, I think in season two she is. She gets rid of a lot of baggage that she's been dragging behind her. She comes to terms that it's over with husband. They can still be friends, or whatever, but their love essentially is love. They're not a couple anymore and she finally gets that. It does free her. She and Grace become better friends and more reliant on one another. Not entirely, but a lot more.
Grace and Frankie's second season premieres on Netflix May 6; the first season is available on DVD and digital download now.
