When director Paul Weitz offered Lily Tomlin the lead role of Elle Reid in “Grandma,” it was a character familiar to the veteran actress.
“I just knew that woman,” Tomlin said Tuesday at TheWrap’s screening series, where she was interviewed by editor in chief Sharon Waxman. Though she isn’t a poet or an academic, the actress said she understands the life of a feminist writer. “And I had lived some of that life myself.”
The fact that she understands the character is not a surprise, given that Weitz wrote the role for her. Having previously worked with Tomlin on “Admission” in which the actress played Tina Fey‘s mother, the writer-director said he kept her in mind for his next project. And after sitting down with her and talking through the story, “The thing just wrote itself,” he explained.
“Grandma” follows Tomlin’s character Elle and her granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) across Los Angeles as they search for the money to terminate Sage’s unwanted pregnancy. The journey forces her to confront old issues from her past, including those with her daughter Judy, played by Marcia Gay Harden. “I think it’s so important to the growth of women as a group for them to resolve the disputes they might have with their mothers, with their daughters,” Tomlin said.
And the actress is hopeful that women of this generation are seeing the word “feminism” less and less as a bad word.
“I think a lot of young women are coming round to the realization that feminism is a good thing for them, for their future,” Tomlin said. “The whole meaning of feminism anyway is that it’s about moving the whole species forward. Not just half of it.”
In the film, though Sage describes her grandmother as “misanthropic,” Tomlin said that part of the reason for Elle’s “asshole” nature is because she’s tired of the injustice that comes with being a woman, something from which she’s determined to protect her granddaughter from.
“She’s going to teach her granddaughter to stand up for herself and be a strong young woman, not be at the affected result of Nat Wolff, her boyfriend,” she said. “She’s been used by him, in the sense that he’s discounted her, dismissed her.”
Although the independent movie had a small budget compared to his previous projects, including “American Pie” and “About a Boy,” Weitz said it wasn’t a hindrance to him as a director because it gave him the creative freedom that comes with not having to answer to a studio.
“I’ve felt that acting and writing are not reducible by budget. Sometimes a larger budget can get in the way of things, actually,” he said. “I’ve never felt pressure to explain things.”
Working within the confines of a $600,000 budget and a short 19-day shoot sounds like a daunting challenge, but Weitz said his experience working on other films has given him the ability to determine what he does and doesn’t need.
“Everything is easy if you detach from the economics of it,” he said.