Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda are in a new Netflix series called Grace and Frankie. The two women are both in their 70s, and this is the first project they have done together since starring in 9 to 5 way back in 1980.
Lily Tomlin plays Frankie to Jane Fonda’s Grace. The series also stars Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston as the husbands of the pair of ladies. But the two men come out to their wives as gay and leave them to be together. Frankie and Grace are left with only each other.
Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, together with Dolly Parton, broke some new ground when they did 9 to 5. One of the more controversial scenes in the film saw the ladies smoking pot. Now, 35 years later, the first episode of Grace and Frankie sees Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda taking peyote.
And Lily Tomlin says the pair actually took peyote as research for the scene.
“Oh, yeah. We just put the preparations in place and then followed them,” she told Entertainment Weekly.
Jane Fonda has high praise for Lily Tomlin, recalling that she saw her as essential to 9 to 5 back in the day.
“I went to see her in Appearing Nitely on Broadway,” Fonda recalls. “I was already developing 9 to 5, and when I saw her it blew my mind. I thought, ‘I don’t want to make this movie without her.’ I got the idea of including Dolly Parton because I heard her on the radio and thought, ‘Boy, that would be cool.’ Dolly, Lily, Jane. It took me a year to persuade them!”
The women were younger for 9 to 5. Fonda admits that it would be tough for her and Lily Tomlin to make that happen now.
“It’s probably harder [to do] now than it was then. It’s so hard to get a movie done and distributed, especially when you’re older. For older women, it’s mostly about independent movies.”
The Grace and Frankie series hits Netflix on May 8.