“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.” — Lily Tomlin

It’s her birthday today.

I wrote about Lily Tomlin (and other talented actresses who come from comedy/improv) in my “Present Tense” Film Comment column. She is on another level. I mean …

A couple years back, as part of an ongoing conversation series with Mitchell about various people we love, we discussed Lily Tomlin. I would pick a name at random and ask him to describe said person in “one word.” We took it from there.

LILY TOMLIN

SOM: One word.

MF: Truth.

I’m a little obsessed with her right now. I just read that she’s playing somebody’s mother on a new show. She’s still working. I think she is always telling the truth even in her most absurd characters. There was the character she used to do who was a Midwestern housewife, and it was such a funny character but it was so truthful. Or Edith Ann. It didn’t matter how absurd they were. They were absolutely the Truth about that kind of person.

MF: My favorite movie of all time is Nashville. She does such beautiful stunning work in that movie. There’s that scene with her watching Keith Carradine singing “I’m Easy”. It’s an amazing scene where he’s singing and all the women in the room think it’s about them, but she knows that it’s about her, and she’s the only woman in the room who is right.

MF: But she also knows that she knows that she’s right, and that there are other women who think it’s about them, but she just quietly sits there and takes it in. It is so gorgeous. Or when she leaves after they have sex and he calls another girl to try to hurt her feelings. She doesn’t even let it hurt her feelings. She knows what’s going on. She is incredible in Nashville. I just always find her truthful, even in silly movies. In 9 to 5, when she’s talking on the phone to her kids, “Listen, there’s more than one peanut butter and banana sandwich in the world …” She’s also funny as hell.

MF: It’s interesting, too. She was one of those people as a kid I was so attracted to, not attracted to sexually, but I was drawn to her, and it’s interesting that she turned out to be a lesbian. There was something very comforting about her that I recognized when I was young.

That whole Laugh In graduating class was so interesting: Jo Anne Worley, Ruth Buzzi, Lily Tomlin, Goldie Hawn.

MF: What an interesting fun group that was. But even back then, Lily stood out.There was a time when she was so hip. People say to me all the time, “When are you going to write something?” No. I’ve tried for years, I throw it away. And I have always felt that I was Lily Tomlin waiting for my Jane Wagner. Lily Tomlin creates these characters that speak the truth, and Jane Wagner’s been writing her shows for years. Her partner. Jane Wagner gives shape to the stories that Lily Tomlin wants to tell, which is fascinating, and I don’t think a lot of people know that. Lily Tomlin is creating the character and then Jane Wagner is fleshing out the structure of the story.

Lily Tomlin always tells the truth, like most comedians do. The best comedians are always telling the truth.

MF: Two quick anecdotes that I love about Lily Tomlin.

After 9 to 5, Lily Tomlin spent years going to red carpet events wearing a Dolly Parton tour jacket. It’s so adorable to me. Like, years have passed since she was trying to sell 9 to 5, but she loved Dolly, and she felt that that would be an appropriate thing to wear to a red carpet. It wasn’t, Lily, it really wasn’t. But she did it anyway because she loved Dolly.

MF: And when she did Big Business with Bette Midler, one of the things they talked about was how differently they worked. Bette is very off the cuff. She likes to rehearse but she likes to improvise in every take. Not necessarily the lines, but how she does them and what she’s gonna do and what her gestures are going to be. Whereas Lily Tomlin plans her shit out. Her shit is so specific. Watch her performances. Her gestures, her hand movements, they were chosen, in much the way we were just talking about in old-school movie acting. She’s very aware of her shape, her gestures, and what story they tell, and what story she is trying to tell with that shape and those gestures. Even in Nashville, the way she holds herself, the way she sits, the way she turns her neck. These are all choices. And Bette Midler was more like, “All right, let’s go for it.” I think that’s interesting: to be able to tell the truth having practiced it. The truth comes out for her after specific choices. I think there’s probably a trial and error of what works and what doesn’t, but once she’s ready to commit it to film, she has made some choices.

SOM: Speaking of Jane Wagner, there’s Moment to Moment, that horrible movie she did with John Travolta, which Wagner wrote and directed.

MF: It’s so bad. She’s had such an interesting career. She’s been under the radar. She came out as a lesbian and nobody noticed. Her career has never been based on the fact that she was a sex symbol, which is why Moment to Moment was a ridiculous attempt. Why are you trying to make Lily Tomlin into the romantic lead? And if you are, then be honest about it and put her with a girl. I mean, obviously, they never could have done that, and certainly John Travolta was not going to do it with a guy. But it is interesting seeing the two of them together. They have the same haircut in the movie. You can’t discern them. Who are these people?

MF: That should have been either a story about an older man on the beach and then this pretty boy who shows up, or an older woman and a younger woman. If Travolta’s character had been a pretty young girl, that could have been a hell of a movie. But even in that, Lily Tomlin seems to be telling her own truth, it’s just a terrible movie.

SOM: I mean, think of Prairie Home Companion.

MF: I don’t know why Tomlin and Meryl Streep don’t make a movie a year together. You know how Claude Rains did a bunch of films where he was the father of a brood of young girls? Or Ma and Pa Kettle had a series of films? Why don’t Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin do a series of films where they play those sisters traveling around having adventures?

SOM: Why doesn’t the industry work like that anymore?

MF: I know, it doesn’t.

SOM: I don’t understand why the industry doesn’t recognize gold and keep trying to do it. I’m not talking about sequels and blockbusters, I’m talking about something else.

MF: They see literally gold, in box office, and that’s what they go after. They’re not looking for that intangible moment of: “What’s that magic going on between those two actors?”

SOM: Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep together, it’s impossible to separate them out, you don’t know who to look at.

MF: And let’s face it, that’s not easy to do with Meryl Streep. Lily Tomlin, who started as a sketch comedian slash actress, holding her own with Meryl Streep says a lot about who Lily Tomlin is as an actress.