Working Girls

Grace and Frankie may be ending, but the era of Jane Fonda–Lily Tomlin collaborations is in full swing.

- By E. Alex Jung

OVER THE DECADES, Jane Fonda’s and Lily Tomlin’s careers have hopscotched through various social spheres and weathered political crises and middle-aged invisibility to return with a late-career renaissance during the streaming wars. On Grace and Frankie, Netflix’s longest-running original series, the final episodes of which air April 29, they play rivals turned besties when their husbands fall in love with each other. Meeting over Zoom, Fonda, 84, in full incognito soccer-mom regalia— sunglasses, a beanie, and an eggplant tracksuit she will zip up to her chin— is forthright about what she would and wouldn’t like to talk about; Tomlin, 82, in a brown jacket and chunky necklace, is more improvisational and circumspect. Fonda has described her life as being determined in some part by men (her father, her husbands), but onscreen, she feels most herself with Tomlin as her closest conspirator.

Who would you slap at the Oscars if you had a chance?

LILY TOMLIN: I’m not too good at slapping. I wouldn’t.

JANE FONDA: I wouldn’t slap anybody at the Oscars. There’s people I’d slap somewhere else.

What do you think about the entire situation?