‘Grace and Frankie’: RuPaul Gets Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin to Open Up About Coming Close to Quitting — Watch (Exclusive)

With Emmys Season in full swing, RuPaul took some time off from guest-starring in the upcoming season of “Grace and Frankie” to talk to stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Their brief conversation was shot on set and finds the trio clad in pajamas, with RuPaul playing interviewer — and getting Fonda to open up about the time in her career when she’d “had it” and quit for 15 years. Watch the exclusive video below.

“I don’t feel like I’m a natural comedian,” Fonda says in response to a question about when she knows to fight for a specific piece of material, “so I always take direction. I want to be told what to do — including given line readings. I love being directed. In things like ‘9 to 5’ and ‘Coming Home’ and a number of films that I produced, if there was something that the director wanted to do differently, I would fight.”

At some point, she didn’t feel like fighting anymore, however. “When I was in my late 40s, I’d had it. I didn’t want to do it anymore,” Fonda continues. “I’d lost my sense of myself and I find it very difficult to act when I don’t like myself and have lost confidence, so I quit for 15 years. And when I had regained a sense of self and a sense of confidence, I came back — and I was really lucky, because it’s very hard, when you’re in your late 60s, to come back after 15 years.”

Tomlin has a similar story, albeit on a smaller scale: “Sometimes at 5 o’clock in the morning when I’m staggering around the bedroom, I think, ‘Oh god, why do I have to go to work today?’ But then when I get here, I’m excited to do the work and do a scene and to see Jane and have guest stars like you.”