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Page 2 May 4 - 10, 2015 Sol, and mine were good friends and sort of suited for each other ... both a bit eccentric. Robert (Sheen) and Grace were less so." Indeed, Fonda notes her ex-spouse couple in the show was "more uptight and conservative, and we didn't have the sort of touchy-feely closeness that they had. To work with Sam and Martin is a thrill, because they're both fantastic." Brooklyn Decker ("Friends With Better Lives") and Ethan Embry ("That Thing You Do!") also are in the cast of "Grace and Frankie," cre- ated by sitcom-veteran executive producers Marta Kauffman ("Friends") and Howard J. Morris ("Home Improvement"). The title stars always have liked to change things up, and they feel they're doing that again in working for a rel- atively new programming source. "The overall feedback that we're getting," Fonda says, "from people who have seen this is, 'It's not what we expected at all. It's way more real than we thought, and there's noth- ing like it on television." Fonda and Tomlin reteam as Netflix's 'Grace and Frankie' By Jay Bobbin © Zap2it Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are such good friends in real life, they're enjoying the challenge of playing women who aren't. The former "9 to 5" co- stars reunite in "Grace and Frankie," a Netflix comedy series premiering Friday, May 8 — and following the streaming service's pat - tern of releasing an entire season of a series at once, 13 episodes in this case. The title characters are left by their husbands, played by Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, who embark on their own relationship together ... leaving Grace (Fonda) and Frankie (Tom - lin) to bond over that situa- tion and others pertinent to women of their age. "It's easy to not be friendly with Lily," Fonda jokes during an interview with both of them. "I had no problem at all with that." And Tomlin's typically droll response? "I welcome her animosity." In tandem with Dolly Parton, Tomlin and Fonda had huge success with the 1980 workplace satire "9 to 5," which Fonda's company produced. She maintains a sequel never was discussed seriously: "We realized quite some time ago that (20th Centu- ry) Fox had no interest in doing it, and they owned the rights. It's fun to do something totally new with somebody you worked with 35 years ago." Tomlin adds, "One of the interests we had in doing this was in talking about the issues that face older women in this culture." However, Fonda notes, "We wanted to do it in the context of a comedy that's also reality-based." Another engaging el- ement of the show for Fonda and Tomlin is that each has worked with the other's "husband": Two- time Oscar winner and AFI Life Achievement Award honoree Fonda recently wrapped up a run opposite Waterston on HBO's "The Newsroom," while four-time Emmy and two-time Tony winner — and Mark Twain Prize and Kennedy Center Honors recipient — Tomlin worked with Sheen during her time on "The West Wing." "In our marriage," Tomlin reports, "Sam's character, For many of the stars of "Undateable," doing a live episode is relatively no problem: They're stand-up comics anyway. NBC clearly is giving the sitcom every opportunity in its sophomore round ... first by moving it from summer into the regular television season, then by letting it have a live one-hour airing Tuesday, May 5. The episode will be performed twice that night, so that both the East Coast and West Coast truly see it live, and executive producer Bill Lawrence is ready for anything that may happen. At least, he thinks he is. "It would be daunting to write an hour-long episode," the veteran of "Spin City" and "Cougar Town" allows, "except what we'll do is write a normal half-hour episode and leave plenty of room for what these young men and women do. I'm sure it wont get daunting until we get on stage and rehearse, and I see these knuckleheads trying to make each other laugh and do improv as they usually do." Among the "knuckleheads" are Chris D'Elia and Brent Morin as roommates Danny and Justin, typically seen with other comrades at Justin's struggling bar. Fellow "Undateable" star Bianca Kajlich plays Danny's sister Leslie; she performed in front of studio audiences during her seven seasons on CBS' "Rules of Engagement," but that show never was broadcast live. "I remember that I did a play once," Kajlich says, "and I thought I was going to throw up all over myself before I went on stage. I was like, 'I've been acting for over a decade. How can I be getting this nervous?' And you realize that when you're doing something live, you have the buffer that the audience enjoys it when you screw up. It actually brings a new energy into the space." Two things viewers can expect from the live "Undateable," Lawrence promises, are notable guest stars and a music element: "Part of it, for me, will be getting old friends from my other shows on. If Donald and Zach (Faison and Braff, formerly of Lawrence's 'Scrubs') aren't on this together, I've made a grave mistake. And with some of the videos we've done, we already have a strong musical component ... so, without a doubt, we will have a big-name recording artist on." 'Undateable' goes live: What they'll do is what you'll get BY JAY BOBBIN Bianca Kajlich Sam Waterston, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Martin Sheen (from left) star in "Grace and Frankie," premiering Friday on Netflix.

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