Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin’s resumes are long and illustrious, and of course include “9 to 5,” the popular feminist tale they made together in the 70s. Both are outspoken activists who are big proponents of increased roles for women in Hollywood over 50.
Ahead of “Grace and Frankie’s” Season 2 premiere, the two actresses told us their view on the state of women in Hollywood, their hopes for the show, and more.
W&H: Do you see the industry changing? Is there still a dearth of roles for women over 50?
LT: It’s way better than it was, say in 1949. Just the fact Jane and I exist — we’ve have had such long careers and we’ve managed to thrive. Even the fact that we both did a movie this year — she did “Youth”; I did a movie called “Grandma.” The fact that we could do that was great. You reach a certain point where you don’t care anymore. You’re going to do what you want to do.
JF: I know the correct talk and it should be talked about — the scarcity of women as directors, producers, actors, and studio heads. It’s pretty remarkable. I co-founded the Women’s Media Center with Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan. We publish reports on the subject. When I was coming up, someone who aspired to be a movie star couldn’t get on TV. That was the beginning of a shift. Nowadays, it’s so hard to get movies made and to make money. All the good writing is going to TV. Movies are a medium for directors; TV is a medium for writers. You follow the good writing and it’s a new thing. I never imagined I’d be doing a show in my 70’s, much less with Lily Tomlin.
W&H: What’s it like working together again?
JF: “9 to 5” doesn’t feel like yesterday — it feels like another lifetime.
LT: We went to Sundance together. We were written up in the newspaper as “Thelma and Louise”! We stayed in a really nice house, after we moved out of the Marriott, but it was all just great. I just loved it. There was a young woman and man who served the house. The woman made everything — excuse the sexist roles – bananas, granola, boiled eggs. The fellow would drive us to the theaters and to a distillery. We bumped into a bunch of people from the business.
W&H: How does it feel to be making a show for women of your own generation?
LT: It feels so great. What we worried about from the beginning was how can we can do something relevant, how can we be speaking to women of our age, and so on.
JF: I wrote a book when I was 45 called “Women Coming of Age,” and in the book I said one of my goals was to give a face to older women. But then I left the business for fifteen years, so I thought this is something that wouldn’t happen. And frankly, during the first season of “Grace and Frankie,” I was upset because I didn’t know if we were doing it. But then women said to me, and probably to you, too, that we’ve changed their lives. They were going down, and we were giving them hope.
LT: But see, we had to go through all that, come from some place, and write all that that with our husbands and everything else and kids and come from the other side.
W&H: What kind of people tell you they’re watching “Grace and Frankie”?
JF: We hear about grandchildren watching it with their grandparents. I get feedback from young people, very, very old people, men and women, straight and gay.
W&H: Where do you hope your characters Grace and Frankie go in Season 2?
LT: Well, I can tell you where we do go but I don’t want to. Jane is fond of saying, which I say, “Just keep it to yourself.” She says [she] hopes we’re making this show as long as we’re both wearing adult diapers. I say, we don’t have to put that out there yet. They only know I wear adult diapers — there’s no surprise there.
W&H: Do you do any ad libbing on the show?
LT: No, we don’t do a lot of ad libbing. We suggest stuff, or say we aren’t comfortable with this or like it to be this way or skew it differently. But no, we don’t ad lib. The show is very dense, and we shoot it in six days. But that’s a half-hour. If it was an hour, we’d be beat to a rag. We’d have to shoot 12–13 days for one episode. So we don’t ad lib too much. We have got to get in the can, and the writers are very good.
W&H: What do you hope the younger generation will take away from the show?
JF: That they’ll say, “You’re over the hill.” And you are, but guess what? There’s another hill, and a whole pasture, and a beautiful canyon and it just keeps going.
“Grace and Frankie” Season 2 premieres on Netflix May 6.
