Both comedians have the distinction of having received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
It remains to be seen whether Fey hand-picked Tomlin for the role, but Tomlin would rather be in the dark about that detail anyway.
"Oh, I hope that's true, I hope it is, I am praying it is. But I am not even going to ask her, I don't want to find out the truth, I don't want to find out, 'Oh well she wasn't my first choice,'" Tomlin laughed.
Tomlin's character wears her feminism proudly, and when you see the movie, you'll understand. She's tough, she's fearless and she's a free spirit with a sense of humor.
"My character Susana has a double mastectomy and I was going to have a big breast plate made with heroic, like an eagle tattooed on it, and I wanted to be chopping wood outside of my house shirtless, but it was so much effort," she said. "I thought it was a great identifying thing to show her heroic feminism. And then of course I wound up with a Bella Abzug tattoo."
The multiple Emmy, Tony and Grammy-winning actress will bring her special brand of humor to the Southern California stage this summer. Her one woman show "An Evening of Classic Lily Tomlin" will take place June 22 at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa.
"I'll fool around and talk about the world a bit. Then I will try and express something through a character, you know, a character's persona, or has a culture-type like Ernestine lately has been working on a health care insurance corp, denying health care to everyone, Edith Ann is in to a lot of social media," Tomlin said.
"Admission" is rated PG-13. It'll be in theatres Friday.
