Tomlin bubbles up with new projects, acclaim

Lily Tomlin’s throat is a little dry. It’s all the champagne, you see.

The 76-year-old comedian and actress was celebrating the just-announced news of her – not one, but two – Golden Globe nominations that morning. Hence, the champagne. But she doesn’t want the interviewer getting any ideas that bubbly is part of her normal wake-up routine. To further eradicate such illusions, she confesses her less-than-glamorous attire at that moment was a bathrobe and T-shirt with “a big stain on the front where I was eating a chicken leg or something and a piece of the food fell right on the front of it.”

Still it has been an indisputably stellar year for the performer – chicken grease stain and all. In late 2014 she received a prestigious Kennedy Center Honor and then went on to have a 2015 that included the debut of her new hit Netflix comedy “Grace and Frankie” in May, release of her critically acclaimed film “Grandma” in August and continuation of her live stage shows. She will stop by the Turlock Community Theatre for one of those stage shows Friday, Jan. 15.

Her two Golden Globe nods came from those on-screen appearances – best performance by an actress in a motion picture, musical or comedy for “Grandma,” and best performance by an actress in a television series, musical or comedy for “Grace and Frankie.” The latter also earned her an Emmy nomination for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series (though she eventually lost to “Veep” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus). The former is continuing to generate Oscar buzz, which would give Tomlin the chance to complete the rare trophy sweep known as an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony).

She has all of the awards now except for an Oscar. Still, for now, Tomlin is living in the moment and enjoying the onslaught of accolades.

“Well, I drank two bottles of champagne. No, kidding. Well, I didn’t celebrate; I just fielded a lot of emails, messages and phone calls. I said I feel elated and on top of the world and much too young for the parts I’m playing,” said the septuagenarian slyly in a phone interview from her Los Angeles home.

Since breaking through on the sketch comedy series “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” in 1969, Tomlin has been a household name known for her quick wit and zany characters. In 1985 she created – along with her longtime professional and personal partner Jane Wagner – the Tony-winning Broadway show “The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” which was later turned into a film. Her other film roles include everything from an Oscar-nominated supporting role in Robert Altman’s “Nashville” to the hit workplace comedy “9 to 5” to the body-swap rom-com “All of Me” with Steve Martin.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s she worked steadily in largely supporting roles, but then last year she broke out as a leading lady once again – first in “Grace and Frankie” alongside her former “9 to 5” co-star Jane Fonda, and then in the indie film “Grandma.” Which brings us back to the champagne, those Golden Globe nominations and her very busy year.

“Well, they actually mean a lot. Jane Fonda got nominated for (the feature film) ‘Youth,’ too, which I was very excited about. We love our series; we like to be seen as younger than springtime. It means a lot to be singled out by the zeitgeist,” Tomlin said. “It’s been really busy, I have to say. We already shot one season of ‘Grace and Frankie,’ but now we finished the second season, and they announced the third season today. It’s been really busy; I’ve hardly had a day off, it seems. You don’t anticipate it because – unless you are just building a career – work comes in spurts.”

The steady work of her Netflix series, which returns for its second season this year, has opened Tomlin’s work up to a wide array of fans both old and new. She said the ability to create for the streaming service was one of the reasons she signed on.

“I get stopped in the airport and every place imaginable. I am really pleased to be able to say I know ‘Grace and Frankie’ has a very broad-based fanbase. Young women in their 20s come and tell me, ‘My God, I see my mother and grandmother,’ ” she said. “It’s kind of amazing we’ve been able to position ourselves in that way. It’s all been done out of love of the craft, but we were thinking in the right direction.”

The ability to be showcased as older women in Hollywood, where women in just their 40s regularly get relegated to the role of loving mom or faithful wife, was another reason Tomlin said she jumped at the series.

“It was a great opportunity for Jane and me both; we both had wanted to do something about women and our age. About how discounted they can be. How objectified and overlooked they can be. We’re just thought of as old women, in a sense. And so it was a wonderful platform to explore all of that,” Tomlin said. “This second season we’ve spent exploring more and more topics that relate to older women and starting over and recreating yourself and all that. It’s really gratifying, and we’re so glad to have a third (season) to take it further.”

And in that yet-to-be-shot third season, Tomlin and Fonda hope to perhaps bring in their other “9 to 5” co-star for a full reunion. Tomlin said Fonda has floated an idea to bring Dolly Parton onto the show for a guest role.

It was a personal connection that also shaped Tomlin’s role in “Grandma,” where she plays a retired lesbian poet who tries to help her teenage granddaughter raise the money needed for an abortion in one day. Director and writer Paul Weitz created the role with Tomlin in mind after directing her previously in the Tina Fey comedy “Admission.” The actress even drove her own car, a 1955 Dodge, in the film.

“Grandma” also showcases Tomlin’s more dramatic side, a side that often gets overshadowed because of her comedic appeal.

“I would have liked to had more dramatic roles, but they never came to me. Even in ‘Grandma’ it plays much funnier than I anticipated. I wonder if someone else had played the part would it have seemed as funny,” she pondered. “I see comedy and drama so close together, I think that’s why most comedians are good at acting – because I think they fit right on the line of comedy and tragedy. It just depends on how far they want to tip over. But I’ve never really seen any difference.”

For Tomlin, it’s that fine line between laughter and pathos that helped her create her now iconic cast of characters.

“From the time I started as an 8- or 9-year-old doing shows on my back porch, I always saw something moving in the neighbors and everyone else. I just thought that was part of being human,” she said. “Plus I was always more eccentric appearing or seeming. So I had to carve out a place for myself because I was pretty young when I started out.”

Through all her successes, Tomlin continues to tour and perform her live shows. Her appearances always feature her characters – from telephone operator Ernestine to 5 1/2 -year-old Edith Ann. So which of her creations is she most like in real life?

“Oh, my God, I don’t know. I’d have to be a combo. Hey, Paul? Of all the characters done or created, who am I most like? I’m asking my colleague Paul,” she said, consulting away from the phone. “He says Trudy the bag woman. (Laughs.) Yeah, that’s who I feel closest to.”

And who does she aspire to be most like?

“(Yelling away from the phone) Paul, is there one I aspire to be like? He says Kate, the rich woman. Nah, she’s too fixed up. I’d be terribly burdened with her grooming,” Tomlin replied.

She said her performances include 10 to 12 of her characters, scenes and commentary. She keeps doing the live shows, she said, because they’re where she started. Before all the award nominations, before the big-screen stardom, before the bubbly breakfasts and all of that there was the stage.

“I just hark back to it; I never think of not doing it. I do love it; I do get a lot out of just working on the stage and with an audience. Most of them are really true fans; they’ve sort of grown up with me,” she said. “I’ll try to talk about Turlock. I’ll mostly just talk about living on the planet. It’s the kind of stuff I’ve always done. And I hope they will relate to it and they will be somewhat entertained, or highly entertained – or not entertained at all.”

Well, that’s doubtful. But that’s Tomlin, always grounding herself back to Earth at her highest moments. The comedy and drama of her life is inescapable, even when celebrating her successes.

“I just read in the announcements of the Golden Globes today that (the producer of ‘Grace and Frankie’) had accelerated our production schedule ‘considering the age of the leads,’ ” she said with a laugh. “The article said said they did the same thing for ‘Hot in Cleveland’ with Betty White. So that was a kick in the head.”

This story was originally published January 6, 2016 at 12:57 PM with the headline "Tomlin bubbles up with new projects, acclaim."