BIG SCREEN
IT’S a good thing Lily Tomlin follows her partner Jane Wagner’s advice. Back in the Eighties, the established American comedian was offered, and promptly rejected, a part in landmark comedy 9 To 5, a role which not only increased her international appeal, but also led to a fruitful personal and professional friendship with co-star Jane Fonda.
“I turned 9 To 5 down originally. I was shooting The Incredible Shrinking Woman and I was so overworked. I’d worked for seven months on that movie, so I was ready to just shut my eyes to anything else.”
But when she went home, “my partner Jane said to me, ‘This is the biggest mistake of your life’,” explains the 76-year-old, who married Wagner in 2014 after 41 years together.
“She said, ‘You’ve got to get on the phone and tell Jane Fonda (who’d reportedly developed the idea with Tomlin and Dolly Parton in mind) you want to take back the resignation’.”
With her tail between her legs, Tomlin “sort of begged” her way back into the 1980 classic, which follows three women who seek revenge on their sexist boss.
“And I am grateful that I did it. They became two of my good friends, you know.”
While Tomlin, Parton and Fonda took their male boss to task 30 years ago in the film, nowadays, the actress admits there’s still a fight to ensure women in Hollywood are given equal footing to men.
Helping to bridge this somewhat, is her acclaimed Netflix comedy Grace And Frankie with Fonda, but also her new film Grandma, a salty female-lead comedy, which offers an alternative take on abortion and womanhood.
In it, Tomlin plays lesbian poet Elle who goes on a nostalgic road trip with her pregnant, teenage granddaughter Sage (played by Julia Garner), in order to scrape together the money to pay for Sage’s abortion.
How rare is it to be offered a role in a female ensemble?
“Oh you don’t, it’s very unusual,” she says.
“It (Grandma) was like a gift from Paul (Weitz, director). On the last day of shooting, as I was walking down the road in the dark after the cab leaves me there (in the final scene), I knew he (Paul) was the only one listening on headphones and I said, ‘Thank you Paul, this has been a divine gift from you’.”
Grandma represents a growing breed of mainstream films offering a different – and dare it be said, more realistic – view on womanhood, a stark and welcome contrast to the two-dimensional characters Hollywood has long served up.
But Tomlin has always led the way with turning screen stereotypes on their head. Growing up in a working-class household in Detroit, Michigan, she switched from studying medicine to theatre studies, eventually leaving college to focus on her performing career.
Inspired by Lucille Ball, Bea Lillie, Imogene Coca, and Jean Carroll, Tomlin was one of the first female stand-ups on The Ed Sullivan Show.
After moving to New York in the mid-Sixties, she started performing frequently at clubs, with her regular spot at popular US show Laugh-In, in 1969, leading to her lifelong professional and personal