At a press conference for Grace and Frankie last month, stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin told reporters that supporting players Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston were being paid the same as they were, and they weren’t happy with it. “The show is not Sol and Robert,” said Tomlin.”It’s Grace and Frankie.” In protest over the show’s gender pay gap — or more accurately, the lack of it — a group of fans started a petition calling for Netflix to give the stars their due, which makes things awkward now that Fonda and Tomlin say they were joking (though, they don’t say if they were joking about the equal pay or the fact that it bothered them). “This just reminds us to be mindful of how things come across in interviews,” the pair said in a joint statement to the Wrap. “We appreciate everyone’s support and the attention to this issue, but the structure of Grace and Frankie is fair.” Sheen and Waterston appear in every episode of the series, though if the universe has a sense of irony, it would give them only 77 percent of the women’s screen time.
