Lily Tomlin At 75: The Actress Discusses Great Roles, Old Cars And Coming Out

Transcript

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Lily Tomlin has a new movie called "Grandma" and co-stars with Jane Fonda in the Netflix series "Grace And Frankie." So now at the age of 75, an age when so many actresses feel shut out of roles, Tomlin's career is going strong. She also got married in her 70s, a year and a half ago, to her longtime partner Jane Wagner, who also wrote a lot of Tomlin's material, including her popular one-woman shows.

Tomlin first became nationally known in 1969 when she joined the cast of the NBC sketch comedy series "Laugh-In." She became identified with some of the characters she did on the show, like the telephone operator Ernestine and the little girl Edith Ann. She's been in many movies, including "Nashville," "The Last Picture Show," "Nine To Five," "All Of Me," "Flirting With Disaster" and "I Heart Huckabees."

Her new film, "Grandma," was directed by Paul Weitz, who also directed her in "Admission." He wrote "Grandma" with Tomlin in mind. She plays Elle, a lesbian whose partner of 38 years died a year and a half ago. Her new, much younger girlfriend breaks up with her in the first scene. And then Elle's granddaughter shows up to ask for a favor. She needs over $600 for an abortion and doesn't want to ask her mother for the money. Elle doesn't object to the abortion, but she's temporarily broke, so they go on a little road trip in Elle's antiquated wreck of a car looking for people from Elle's past who might help out. At a coffee shop, Elle is complaining loudly about the difficulty of getting an abortion.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GRANDMA")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As waiter) I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave.

LILY TOMLIN: (As Elle) Excuse me?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As waiter) I'm going to have to ask you to leave

TOMLIN: (As Elle) When? When are you going to have to ask us?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As waiter) I'm going to have to ask you to leave now.

TOMLIN: (As Elle) Oh, you are asking us.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As waiter) Yes, you're disturbing the customers.

TOMLIN: (As Elle) I'm a customer. Would you know what a customer is?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As waiter) I know what a customer is.

TOMLIN: (As Elle) A customer is someone who pays for your services, so I am a customer. I mean, what other customers are we disturbing? Oh, them, Ozzie and Harriet?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As waiter) Yes, you are disturbing them.

TOMLIN: (As Elle) Now we're disturbing you, isn't that right?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As waiter) Yes, you are also disturbing me.

GROSS: Lily Tomlin, welcome to FRESH AIR. So I read you wore your own clothing and you drove your own very, very old, large car.

TOMLIN: (Laughter) Yes, I did.

GROSS: Why did you do that? Were you making a statement by doing that?

TOMLIN: No, no, one day, Paul - we'd been working together talking about the show and all, and he said, I have to go over - I'm going to look at an old car. And I said, for Elle to drive? And he said, yeah. I said, well, I have an old car. So we were looking to save money where we could, and so he came over to the house, he saw my car, and I don't drive it too much anymore because it's 60 years old...

GROSS: (Laughter).

TOMLIN: ...And the brakes require pumping. You have to really plan on your stops, you know, or when you're going to slow down to make a turn or something. So I said - and he saw it and it's really great-looking for - it's just like another character in the movie.

GROSS: Why did you still have that car?

TOMLIN: I don't know. I just loved it. I guess I bought it 40 years ago because I - someone knew I was going to make this movie. I don't know. I've had that car all the time. I couldn't bear to part with it. I drove it for a long time when I first bought it in '75.

GROSS: So what's the model?

TOMLIN: It's a '55 Dodge Royal Lancer painted all black with heavy, big heavy chrome, kind of like a Batmobile or something. It's got a big, bullet bumper head in the front and teeth, you know, for the grill.

GROSS: (Laughter).

TOMLIN: And it's just great-looking, and it's - it was really wonderful painted all black.

GROSS: So is "Grandma" the first movie in which you played a lesbian?

TOMLIN: No, I played a lesbian in "Tea With Mussolini," in which I played an archaeologist.

GROSS: I didn't see that. That's - what? - 10 years ago, maybe?

TOMLIN: Oh, yeah, it was '93. It was 20 years - well, oh, my God, how long ago was it? 2000 - yeah, it's a long time ago. Doesn't seem like it, oh, my gosh. You know, Maggie Smith was in it, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Cher and me.

GROSS: So this is the first time you're playing a lesbian after it's kind of official that you're out now. Like you - a lot of people knew (laughter) before, but now that...

TOMLIN: I had been out for 10 or 11 or 12 years or something. I mean, finally somebody printed it.

GROSS: (Laughter) What do you mean?

TOMLIN: I did interviews for years, even when I was on the cover of Time. I mean, Jane was always there. We were touring, working on "Appearing Nightly," our first Broadway show, and - but nobody - and I - my publicist had almost pulled off the two magazines, Newsweek and Time. And at the last minute, Newsweek got wind of it, and they put someone else on the cover. But they'd done a big story on me, which was inside. And one magazine says I lived in Hollywood Hills with - I shared a house with writer Jane Wagner, and the other one said I lived alone.

GROSS: Oh, that's really interesting.

TOMLIN: So that was back in the '70s.

GROSS: Well, you had said that Time magazine, back in 1975, said they'd give you the cover if you came out.

TOMLIN: Right, and I chose not to. And then I got the cover in '77 with my first Broadway show.

GROSS: Can you talk about that decision of saying to them, no, thank you?

TOMLIN: Well, I was sort of - you know, I was sort of tempted, and in some ways, I wanted to make a big declaration like that. But I didn't - they wanted a gay person, and I wanted to have - I wanted to be acknowledged for my performance. And so I kind of - I was a little bit insulted and a little bit stimulated by the idea, but I ultimately just came down on the side of my own sense of things.

GROSS: I want to get back to that a little later, but I want to talk with you about the other big project that you have, your Netflix series "Grace And Frankie." And the premise of this - like, you're straight in this. It's the husbands who are gay (laughter).

TOMLIN: (Laughter) Yeah, right.

GROSS: So the premise of this in the first episode is that you and the character Jane Fonda play are opposites. And you are kind of an artist and still a hippie, and you don't - she's much straighter and founded like some kind of cosmetics-type company.

TOMLIN: Right, right.

GROSS: And you don't get along very well 'cause you're so different, but your husbands are partners in law firm. And in the first episode, the husbands invite the wives to, like, a double date at a restaurant. And the wives are expecting their husbands are about to announce their retirement, and now the wives will get to spend more time with their husbands and travel. But instead, the husbands, played by Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, tell you that they want to be together as a couple, and so they are leaving you and Jane Fonda. So here's that scene. You speak first.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GRACE AND FRANKIE")

TOMLIN: (As Frankie) You mean, you're gay, and this is who you're gay with?

SAM WATERSTON: (As Sol) This is who I'm in love with.

JANE FONDA: (As Grace) God.

TOMLIN: (As Frankie) No, this makes no sense. You're business partners; you're not lovers. Friends. How long has this been going on?

WATERSTON: (As Sol) Well, it's been - I don't know exactly.

MARTIN SHEEN: (As Robert) Twenty years.

TOMLIN: (As Frankie) You don't think there was a better time to tell us this, like, say, anytime over the last two decades?

FONDA: (As Grace) I'm going to throw up.

WATERSTON: (As Sol) I'm so sorry.

TOMLIN: (As Frankie) Why now?

WATERSTON: (As Sol) We want to get married.

FONDA: (As Grace) Married?

SHEEN: (As Robert) 'Cause we can do that now.

TOMLIN: (As Frankie) I know. I hosted that fundraiser.

FONDA: (As Grace) Oh, my God.

GROSS: (Laughter) I like, I hosted that fundraiser.

TOMLIN: Right, oh, God, that's so long ago. It seems - we've been on such a long trip. You know, we've done 13 episodes and eight aired, and we're - we just finished our fourth episode of the second season. I mean, it won't - it's not out on Netflix yet. It won't be out for a few months. But I remember doing that scene very well.

GROSS: How did the series get started? It was created by Marta Kauffman, one of the co-creators of "Friends."

TOMLIN: Right, she...

GROSS: Did you already know her?

TOMLIN: No, I - well, I knew of her. I didn't really know her. I can't even say I'd ever met her. And I can't speak for Jane, but Marta had the idea. And she was in my agency, William Morris, and they came to us with the idea. They came to Jane and me both. So that was really clever that she wanted to pair us up 'cause we hadn't been together in a show since "Nine To Five." That was a big hit, so - and Jane and I really are fairly close and have been friends for years, and it seemed like a natural. And we both wanted to do something about women, older women, and how discounted they are or how easily overlooked they are in the culture and have that kind of impact.

GROSS: So what is it like for you, as a performer, to be in your mid-70s?

TOMLIN: Yeah, I'm 75.

GROSS: So your 70s have been a really big decade for you. You're getting, you know, major roles. Right now you've got the Netflix series and a new movie. You're a regular on Lisa Kudrow's "Web Therapy" (laughter).

TOMLIN: Right, yes (laughter).

GROSS: You got married in your 70s, so - I don't know. That must feel really good that things, instead of...

TOMLIN: Well, I don't know. I...

GROSS: ...Diminishing professionally, they're expanding.

TOMLIN: Well, no, it is good. It's terrific. I think if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't know terribly the difference. I would just go on doing what I did or dropping off from what I did or lying in a hammock or something. I think I would've been satisfied. I mean, I always work on the stage anyway. I go out and do dates.

GROSS: Right.

TOMLIN: And I'm never - I've done that since I was well known, since I was on "Laugh-In."

GROSS: Right.

TOMLIN: Soon as I could sell a house, that's what I did 'cause I'd done - I'd had an act all my life since I was like 8 years old or something. I mean, an act I did on the back porch, but nonetheless I sold tickets back then, too.

GROSS: (Laughter) Very enterprising.

TOMLIN: (Laughter) Yeah.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Lily Tomlin. She stars in the new movie "Grandma," and she stars in the Netflix series with Jane Fonda called "Grace And Frankie." Let's take a short break here, then we'll talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Lily Tomlin. She stars in the new movie "Grandma" and in the Netflix series "Grace And Frankie." She stars with Jane Fonda. The fact that you were gay was, like, kind of an open secret for a long time. I interviewed you in 1989 on FRESH AIR, and I had heard that - that you were gay, but that you weren't, you know, officially out. And I thought, although you were out to a lot of people, I thought, definitely, it is not something I can ask you about back in 1989. I'm wondering - this is a weird question - but I'm wondering if in 1989, in our interview, I had asked you about being a lesbian, what - how would you have handled that?

TOMLIN: I probably would've - let's see - I probably would have said something like - yes, I am.

GROSS: (Laughter).

TOMLIN: I couldn't have lied. It would've been too diminishing to lie. I - you know, I would've said, well, this may come as a surprise to some, but I am.

GROSS: Are you surprised that nobody put you in that position?

TOMLIN: I'm kind of surprised, but, you know, I've been well-known since 1970.

GROSS: Were you afraid of the impact it...

TOMLIN: I...

GROSS: ...It could've had on your career if you were out...

TOMLIN: I probably - I probably was - my mother knew that - my brother's gay, too. And so we were both gay, and I felt - I guess I knew that my mother would be a bit devastated for it to be publicly known, I mean, because she's from Kentucky. Her family are all Southern, and my family's Southern, too. Her family is my family, and when I went to Kentucky every summer when I was a kid growing up - of course, it wasn't an issue then, but as I got older and I was close to all my family, my relatives and - I always played their - I played the game according to their - their lives. I didn't - I didn't challenge the way they related to other people. I was sort of shocked and horrified even when I was a young kid because I came from Detroit, and I was - I had one foot in urban Detroit and one foot in rural Kentucky. And it was a bit of a, you know, culture shock, even if it was just killing a chicken in the backyard, wringing its neck off. And so we - I mean, we would go to - I remember one day, my mother - my aunt Etheleen (ph) who was my mother's younger sister - she had a woman who worked with her, and she worked with her out in the yard and worked as hard as Maddie (ph) did, but Maddie was black. And when she - one day, they had a funeral for some - one of Maddie's relatives, and we were all standing around in the farmyard, I mean, barefoot and some old raggedy dress on or something, you know, just playing around, doing stuff. I was about 9 or 10. And my aunt Etheleen said, come on, we're all going to go over to Maddie Joe's family's funeral or whatever she said. And I said, well, we can't go like this. And she said, oh, they'll be proud we came. Well, I knew they would not be proud we came, and I went anyway, but I was just mortified, you know, to be there. They were dressed up and having a real ceremony for someone in their family that had died. And we were standing there with old straw hats on and barefoot, and I just knew that the double standard that they were unaware that they were playing into.

GROSS: And there was a sign of disrespect to show up looking like that.

TOMLIN: Oh, terrible, terrible.

GROSS: So you felt about them...

TOMLIN: But they felt OK about it, totally OK, yeah.

GROSS: When you realize that both you and your brother were gay, did that give you some sense of kind of community with each other?

TOMLIN: Not really, not at first because my brother was, you know, very - he was much more ostracized by the society because he was a boy. And he was very artistic and just - he just - he was much more identifiable than I was, and he suffered a lot for it. I mean, he was bullied, and he's three years younger than I am, so he lived through the same kind of times I did. But I was much more - a much cheekier, more assertive kind of person. And I also wanted to be an actress, and I just - I mean, I had - I was able to look out for myself. And my brother wasn't as able. He was much more recessive as a personality.

I mean, he's not really. He's really funny and adorable. And I used to write material for us to do, but he would say - he would walk off the stage in the middle of the show. He'd say, oh, this is so embarrassing (laughter). He would leave, and that's how I learned to start just doing it by myself.

GROSS: So your formative years in show business were just before Stonewall, starting to perform onstage, starting to make the rounds of some of the talk shows. But your really big break, "Laugh-In," basically coincided with Stonewall. They were both the same year, 1969.

TOMLIN: Right. I went on "Laugh-In" the last day of '60 - the last Monday of '69. It was December 29.

GROSS: So what was it like for you to have your career as a network television star coincide with, like, this big landmark in the gay rights movement - the landmark that kind of really makes it official that there is a gay rights movement that is willing to literally fight for its rights?

TOMLIN: Well, I think, naturally, I was - I mean, being - wanting to be in show business and not wanting to be strictly identified as a gay performer. I wanted to be identified as a performer. And I did a range of kind of culture types, which I was most interested in. I mean, people would say I'd like to do - I was slow coming around to doing a gay character. I kind of wanted to do one on "Laugh-In," but then - or do a, physically, a gay - you know, some kind of butch girl or something that would be interesting and kind of new to be seen in that kind of venue. I was looking more to draw attention to myself as an artist by my inventiveness (laughter).

GROSS: What would that character have been like had you actually done her?

TOMLIN: I'm not sure. I think she would just been - she just would've been, you know, kind of boyish. Her hair would be short in some fashion. I don't know what she would've been. I never really put her on her feet.

GROSS: And why...

TOMLIN: But I thought it would be an interesting type to do. But you know, I also had my eye to - whether I did really overtly or not, but I was - I was more interested in speaking to humanity as a whole. So I would've liked to have included a character like that. I was also more interested in doing men. I thought it was - would be more eye-catching for me to do male characters and also to show empathy for certain male characters, the least likely ones. Like I did the first - the first male I did was in "Appearing Nightly," and I did Rick, the singles bar cruiser. And he was macho and - typically macho. It was, you know, kind of easy to do. And I - then I said, well, I don't think I should do any more men until I can do as many men as I do women. I was operating in a somewhat limited sphere, although you don't - you know, you don't identify a gay character strictly by her physicality or his physicality.

GROSS: My guest is Lily Tomlin. She stars in the new movie "Grandma" and stars with Jane Fonda in the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie." She'll talk about her childhood after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Lily Tomlin. She stars in the new movie "Grandma" and stars with Jane Fonda in the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie." She first became famous in 1969 when she joined the cast of the NBC sketch comedy series "Laugh-In," where she introduced viewers to characters like the phone operator Ernestine and the child Edith Ann.

Well, you've always done characters. What do you think it is about you that has all these characters living inside of you? You know, like a lot of actors, they just want to, like, do roles that they're given. They don't have characters living inside them who they do for years and years 'cause those characters stay alive with inside them.

TOMLIN: Yeah, or they're just kind of playing themselves. Those are the real movie stars. I think I separated it. It was just one kind of performance that I could get up and do. I didn't - I could - and nobody else on the boards were - was really doing that - characters to that extent. First of all, there's very few women that were in the beginning. When I was coming up, there were just a handful of women who were well-known, like - I mean, Joan had starred - had already made it, so she was - and she would work...

GROSS: Joan Rivers.

TOMLIN: Joan Rivers - and she would perform in the downstairs room, and I was in the review upstairs. And I used to slip down between numbers, and I would kind of listen to her in the downstairs room. I'd crack the door and just so enjoyed her outrageousness. One woman that I saw as a young person, Jean Carroll - I'd corresponded with her a little bit after I got well-known because I'd been very impacted by her. My mother - we'd see her on "Ed Sullivan" in the early '50s, and she always was very breezy, very breezy kind of feminine style and would wear a cocktail dress and a cocktail hat or sometimes a mink stole. And she did husband jokes, and my mother would just laugh. She would be so delighted. And my mother had a wonderful sense of humor and pretty sophisticated in terms of her taste, and she laughed so much at Jean Carroll. And I'd - I would enjoy it because of that, but I thought, what is that woman doing? She's doing something. I mean, I didn't use the word subversive, but I felt that there was a little turn to what she did.

GROSS: Can I get back to your family for a second and ask...

TOMLIN: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Another question about that?

TOMLIN: Yeah.

GROSS: I read that your father was an alcoholic. How did that affect your growing up? And the...

TOMLIN: Well, you know...

GROSS: ...You know, the atmosphere at home when you were growing up?

TOMLIN: Well, I - my father worked very - I mean, he was a very good worker, and he worked five days a week. He never missed work. So he wasn't like a - an alcoholic who does not functioning. And on the weekends - but my dad was a Southerner. He was like a guy from that generation who my mom - my mother was a stay-at-home mother until I was about 12, and she was devoted to her house and her children and her marriage to some extent. And my dad would go out on the weekends. He'd go to the track. He'd go to the bookie joint.

And by the time I was, you know, able to walk capably (laughter), he took me to the bars with him, and he took me to the track with him on the weekends. And I would place his bets when I got to be, you know, 14 or so 'cause kids just looked - girls looked older then. I'd have beehive hairdo and a sheath dress. And, you know, I'd go to the window and buy my father's tickets. And sometimes, I would hold his money. I wouldn't bet it. And my heart would just leap out of my chest 'cause I worried about my dad always betting on everything, and he was a factory worker. He didn't have enough money to bet. And he always had a front roll in his pocket. I would book his bets so that he would not lose the money.

GROSS: Right.

TOMLIN: And, of course, I was taking a chance every time because if he had won, he - I wouldn't have been able to bring him the cash.

GROSS: Do you think that going with your father to the races and placing bets and things like that helped you learn how to be assertive and speak assertively?

TOMLIN: Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean, that's part of it. And then somehow, I mean, I can remember my mother was forever being preyed upon by, you know, door-to-door salesmen. They used to - I mean, this is my own interpretation of it, but I always thought they sort of preyed on working-class women who - and they were often up from the South or someplace like that. And when she first came to the North, she was more easily intimidated, although not intimidated - but just authority figures would be a bit daunting for her because she grew up on a farm and stuff like that.

And I remember she had a - just a particular inclination to buy vacuum cleaners (laughter). And my mother would be mad at herself for caving in to these guys and buying another vacuum cleaner. And I remember when I was 14, I was looking through the closet, and I found an old vacuum cleaner stuffed up in the back. It was a Kenmore, and they were fairly expensive in those days. And I called the guy. I said, mother, sure, give me the contract. Let me read it. She brings me the contract, and I look at it, and I see that it says you can change your mind in 72 hours or something like that. And so I called the guy up, and I said, you come and get this vacuum cleaner. My mother doesn't want it. And he gave me a hard time. And when he came up to the house, I pitched the vacuum cleaner out on the - at bottom of the stairs. We'd moved into a house by this time. We lived in an apartment all that time until I was about 14. And I think a kind of an - a sense of injustice stayed with me for my - most of my life.

GROSS: Can I talk to you about your voice for a moment?

TOMLIN: Yes.

GROSS: You have a very resonant, deep voice, which you can alter for different characters that you're playing. We talked a little earlier about how, perhaps, you helped develop an assertive voice placing bets for your father and hanging out...

TOMLIN: Yeah.

GROSS: ...In the places that he took you to. But were you always conscious of your voice as having the ability to convey power?

TOMLIN: No, I - listen, I haven't - I probably developed this voice because of working on the stage. I - when I won my first Emmy, I saw - I've seen a clip of it, you know, from time to time. And I'm talking somewhere up here like this, like a girly voice, really high-pitched (laughter).

GROSS: (Laughter).

TOMLIN: I mean, I just - it's hard to believe that - that I had that voice. I think it's a factor of youth - some youth.

GROSS: Did you study voice at all?

TOMLIN: No.

GROSS: Acting lessons?

TOMLIN: I tried to. I went to a couple of acting teachers, and I did have one acting coach, Peggy Feury, who was my doctor in "All Of Me." And I met her, and I found out she had - she was a studio actress, and she had set up the studio out here in LA. And I became great friends with her, so I worked with her from time to time. And she was - I find myself most successful working with people just talking about the character psychologically and everything like that. And I've never been a good acting student. When I took one class, and when I would get up on stage and do something for the class, I'd finish, and I'd look out, and they'd just be looking at me, like, with their jaws hanging open, thinking, what in the hell was she doing? And I - when I tried to implement whatever the teacher was putting out, I just must've been a case. That's all I can think. So I found I fared better by just struggling through, trying to figure out what I should do, and sort of acting on my own.

GROSS: Recently, you've played women who were hippies in the '60s. Well, you play that now on "Grace And Frankie." And in the movie "Flirting With Disaster," you are the birthmother of the Ben Stiller character, and you and your husband...

TOMLIN: (Laughter) Yes.

GROSS: ...Alan Alda were hippies in the '60s. Do you feel well-suited to that role?

TOMLIN: No, not any more than I would be well-suited to like an "Ozzie and Harriet" character. I feel like - I mean, that they're sort of fun to play if you can get a good beat on them, but they've been done to death. And I wasn't so much a - I wasn't, like, strictly a hippie in the '60s. I played so many roles I - even in high school. I mean, I went to an accelerated high school. They had an art, music - let me see - art, music, engineering. They had specialized curricula. And we - and every department had a hangout. And I was, like, one of the few people that just went to all the hangouts. I would, like, kind of circulate around. I'd go to - and if I'd get in with a groove for a while, I'd hang out at that place. And sometimes, I dressed to go with the hangout. It was like a costume. I liked doing all that. I liked being a part of so many different things. I would dress real hoodie. I'd go through a big hoodie phase where I wore, you know, peg skirts with a scatter pin at the top of the pleat at the bottom and black stockings with seams and ballet shoes and a sweater turned around backwards with a tanker jacket - oh, and I - and smoke Pall Malls. And then I would go real arty. I'd have like a real dirty tennis trench coat and knee socks and sneakers that were all beat up. I just liked to play all those roles. I didn't think of it as playing roles as I just did sort of having fun, dressing up for school or something.

GROSS: When you were eight and starting to do characters on your back porch (laughter), who were those characters? Where did those characters come from? Were you doing impressions of people in your neighborhood or your family...

TOMLIN: Yeah, I'd do...

GROSS: ...Or were they just coming from within?

TOMLIN: No, I'd do people from my family as best I can recall, and I would do people that were in the building. And I also would have ideas about something. And I would also - and I would imitate people I saw on television, like Jean Carroll. I would put on my mother's slip like an evening dress and tell husband jokes. I can tell you one.

GROSS: At the age of 8 (laughter)?

TOMLIN: Yeah. I'd say...

GROSS: That's hilarious.

TOMLIN: ...I'll never forget - and I'd take her style. I'll never forget the first time I saw my husband standing on a hill, his hair blowing in the breeze, and he too proud to run after it.

GROSS: (Laughter) At 8, you're telling this? Is that one of...

TOMLIN: Yes...

GROSS: ...Is that one of her jokes...

TOMLIN: ...I'm telling you...

GROSS: ...Or is that an original?

TOMLIN: That's one of her jokes. Yeah, that's one of her jokes (laughter).

GROSS: Lily Tomlin, she stars in the new movie "Grandma" and stars with Jane Fonda in the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie." Coming up, John Powers reviews the new documentary about the 1968 debates between Gore Vidal and William Buckley, who detested each other. This is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.