Lily often joins Jane, a longtime activist, at marches and protests around the country. When they aren't on set together, they always find their way back to one another.

Over the years, they have become an example of strong female friendship, even leading them to host a TED Talk centered around this very subject in 2015. When asked what they love most about starring in Grace and Frankie during a BUILD interview, Jane cut straight to the point, 'I love working with her.

Now in its seventh and final season, Grace and Frankie tells the story of two former rivals who become each other's biggest support system after their husbands fall in love with one another. So, when they were offered the opportunity to work together on a Netflix show nearly four decades later, they immediately said yes - no questions asked. Photo credit: Araya Doheny - Getty Images I said, 'I don't want to make a movie about secretaries if she's not in it.''Īt the time, the movie was penned as a drama, but Jane feared that it would be viewed as 'too preachy, too much of a feminist line.' But once she witnessed Lily's sheer comedic genius in action, two things became clear to Jane: 'I couldn't make 9 to 5 without Lily Tomlin, and two, it had to be a comedy,' she said while honoring Lily at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2014. 'I totally changed the idea for 9 to 5 because of her. 'I just could not believe that so many people live inside of this amazing body,' Jane recalled during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Just a few years before they worked together on 9 to 5, Jane saw Lily performing in her one-woman Broadway show, Appearing Nitely, and knew then and there, that she wanted to write Lily into her new movie. That 'long' friendship that she's talking about spans decades, dating all the way back to the late 1970s. We have a soft spot for each other,' Lily told shortly after the Netflix show premiered. That's because you can sense that Jane and I have been friends for so long.

Their chemistry on Netflix's Grace and Frankie is electric, and Lily credits it to her real-life friendship with the show's other leading lady, none other than 2021's Golden Globe Cecil B. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin's friendship is the gold standard.

Download lily tomlin 9 to 5