Lily Tomlin, Forever | Glamour

In 1985, Tomlin won a Tony for acting in the one-woman show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, also by Wagner. “All my life, I always wanted to be somebody,” one of her characters in the show laments. “Now I see that I should have been more specific!” I asked Tomlin, when she looks at all her accomplishments, does she feel like a “somebody”?

“No, I really don’t,” she says, suddenly serious. “No matter how celebrated you are, or how famous you are, you just keep working. You do what you do, and then pretty soon you die.”

There’s a pause as we both consider this. Then she laughs a big, strong hoot of laughter. Tomlin sings to herself when she gets depressed. She’s been trying to eat food that’s better for the planet, ordering vegan meal kits. (The problem is “you don’t really know exactly what you’re eating,” she says. “There’s not like...a descriptive discussion on it on the lid of the dish.”) She and Wagner like watching Turner Classic Movies and are, in Tomlin’s words, “anxiously awaiting the return of Billions.” Theirs is the rare Hollywood relationship that has lasted decades. “I just love her, I respect her, I admire her,” Tomlin says. There’s no secret to their endurance, just commitment. “You don’t want to destroy it. You don’t want to cheapen it, shortchange it, so you just work at it. It’s hard; you have to really put in effort.”

Tomlin is 81. Reporters have been asking her to look back on her career since she was about 40. She’s just kept making people laugh, kept creating, kept using her moment in the spotlight, however long it lasts, to direct rage at injustice. The first episode of Grace and Frankie is called, cheekily, “The End.” Tomlin has proved again and again that she won’t be told when to wrap up, isn’t interested in the dictates of an industry that has never particularly valued women. She won’t be knocked around by a life that ends—like a big joke—in death.

“You do what you do, and then pretty soon you die,” Tomlin says. That’s true for everyone, famous and not. At least, Tomlin demonstrates, you should have a good laugh in between.

Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter.