Lily Tomlin & Paul Weitz—Grandma, Admission—8/22/2015

For nearly fifty years, Lily Tomlin has delighted audiences on stage and screen. Tomlin honed signature characters like telephone operator Ernestine and precocious little girl Edith Ann on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and her own TV specials, then delivered an Oscar-nominated performance in Robert Altman's Nashville (reteaming with Altman on The Player, Short Cuts, and A Prairie Home Companion). More films followed—The Late Show, Moment by Moment, Nine to Five, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, All of Me, Big Business, Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog, David O. Russell's Flirting With Disaster and I Heart Huckabees, Orange County, The Walker, and The Search for Signs of Inteligent Life in the Universe, based on her signature stage show, written by partner Jane Wagner. Memorable television work includes regular roles on Murphy Brown, The West Wing, and her current Netflix series (with Jane Fonda) Grace and Frankie, as well as recurring roles on Web Therapy, Desperate Housewives, Damages and Eastbound & Down, and guest shots on Homicide: Life on the Street, The X Files, The Simpsons, and Will & Grace. Tomlin rejoins her Admission director Paul Weitz for Grandma, which Weitz wrote for the star. Director/writer/producer Weitz made his mark directing American Pie before helming his own scripts for About a Boy (with brother Chris), In Good Company, American Dreamz, and Being Flynn, among others. I spoke with Tomlin and Weitz at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel on August 22, 2015.