Brenda Vaccaro Feels ‘Like I’m a Kid’ as She Debuts New Film “Nonnas” at 85: ‘I Just Keep Working’ (Exclusive)

• Brenda Vaccaro tells PEOPLE about her iconic career, from Midnight Cowboy to Friends

• “I really feel like I’m a kid,” says the actress, who turned 85 in November

• In her new Netflix film Nonnas, she plays a woman who finds a second act making food at an Italian restaurant: “The message is, ‘Why quit?’ Just keep going,” she says

“What do you want to know, Toots?”

And with that, Brenda Vaccaro begins an hourlong chat about life, turning 85, her favorite leading men — and her new film, Nonnas.

“I really feel like I’m a kid,” she says. “When someone says 85, I think, what? I can’t even believe it myself. I just keep working. Talking about age is boring.”

Her career on stage, screen and TV has spanned more than half a century, including Midnight Cowboy in 1969,  a turn as Joey’s mom in Friends and even a stint as Mr. Big’s secretary in And Just LIke That….

“I don’t have a problem with age other than I don’t want to acknowledge it,“ the Oscar-nominated actress says with a laugh. “Your body changes and all of a sudden there’s sciatica. Things start to crumble in a kind of odd way.”

A few things remain unchanged — not just her unmistakable throaty laugh. “All the women in my family have beautiful skin,” she says. “I’ve never done anything.” As she sees it, “When you get older, you gain. Not lose.”

It’s the theme of her new Netflix film Nonnas, co-starring Susan Sarandon, Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire and Vince Vaughn. The movie is the true story of a Brooklyn man (Vaughn) who hires grandmas — aka nonnas — rather than professional chefs to cook the food in the kitchen of the restaurant he opens.

“It’s about love and family — and grace. The whole idea is it’s never too late to start again. The message is ‘Why quit?’ Just keep going,” she says.

“When one of the grandmothers says, ‘I’m finished. I can’t cook anymore,’ her grandson says, ‘Why don’t we just go to Staten Island and you can make your meatballs and we’ll have people come in and eat — and she takes him up on it.”

Born in Brooklyn, Vaccaro studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse from the time she turned 17. “I told them I was 18,” notes the star.

She went on to work with some of the biggest names on screen and stage and fell for a few. “I adored Robert Mitchum,” she says of her costar from 1971’s Going Home. “He taught me about acting. He’d say, ‘The less you do, the more you have done.’ I fell in love with him. Who wouldn’t? He was a wise man and had a great sense of humor.”

“I don’t remember who was the best screen kiss,” she says. “I was divinely happy to kiss all of them. Some of those leading men were breathtaking, weren’t they?”

One of her most memorable roles was In 1969’s Midnight Cowboy, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight and directed by John Schlesinger, whom she calls “brilliant.” The X-rated film won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Regarding her famous sex scene with Voight, she credits some luxurious outerwear for an assist. “Ann Roth [the costume designer] saved my ass by finding a fox fur coat,” she recalls. “Ann lived in Pennsylvania and one night while driving home, she sees a guy’s car trunk open with all these fur coats. She got a fox fur for 250 dollars. The next day, John Schlesinger, he knew I was nervous about being in bed with nothing on and he said, ‘It’s absolutely perfect. How fabulous. F—– in fox.’ I said, ‘Wait till my mother sees this. She’s going to faint.’ ”

While walking in the Beverly Glen area of L.A. years later, she and her husband glimpsed Voight in a deli. “I tapped on the glass and he lit up and we talked for a half hour about old times. As we got up, there was someone outside waiting for his autograph. He signed and said, ‘Brenda, sign it.’ And I said, ‘No, it’s for you.’ And he said, ‘No, it’s for us. It’s for the memory, sweetheart.’ ”

Vaccaro was also close to Bea Arthur of Maude and The Golden Girls (she had a stint on the latter) and says Lauren Bacall, her costar on Broadway’s Cactus Flower, was surprisingly vulnerable. “A tough and capable cookie, but I liked her. Betty [as Bacall was known] was protective of herself and rightfully so. She came from Hollywood. It was a different world. The theater is more embracing.”

That’s how Vaccaro met Barbra Streisand, who remains a friend. “When she was in I Can Get it For You Wholesale [in 1962] I was in Everybody Loves Opal. On Wednesdays, after the matinee between shows, we’d go to a Chinese restaurant, one of the basement restaurants, and then go back to work. She’d say, ‘Have a good show,’ and I’d say, ‘You too, darling.’ ”

Playing Matt LeBlanc’s mother, Gloria Tribbiani, on Friends in 1995 introduced her to a new audience. “I was in the sixth show,” she notes. “My agent said , ‘Just go do it.’ I had worked with Matthew [Perry]’s father [John Bennett Perry] and when I saw Matthew come down [the hallway] and wink at me, I said, ‘I know your father.’ They were all vulnerable and sweet. Just adorable.”

Looking back, she says, “When you think about the generation I came from, brilliant: Julie Christie, Glenda Jackson and James Caan, Liz Ashley, Geraldine Page, George C. Scott; they were so good.”

“I’m still here and ready to go and [Nonnas] is all about ladies who go on forever,” she notes. “The audience [from an early screening] went f——- nuts. It’s amazing.”

She’s happy to have returned to New York, (with her fourth husband Guy Hector) where her career began. “I came back to my apartment, and my Scotch tape was still on the dining room table and I said ‘Yep, I’m meant to come back,’ ” says Vaccaro, who moved from California a few years ago.

She often cites something she heard a long time ago in an old jazz club in Detroit, when she was traveling with her then-boyfriend, alto saxophone player Richie Cole.

“I saw this very old man sitting on these wooden boxes in a room in the back. Now, this is a true story, Toots. He’s got a little jazz hat on, lines on his face and rings on every finger. He said, ‘You got to remember one thing, baby. Life is just flowing and glowing. That’s all it is.’  So I think if I ever write a book, I’m going to call it, Life is Flowing and Glowing in tribute to that old man.”

Nonnas is now streaming on Netflix.

Read the original article on People