John Arthur Lithgow (born October 19, 1945 in Rochester, New York) is a highly prolific and accomplished Academy Award-nominated American actor, musician, and author.
A dormroom housemate of Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones while at Harvard in the mid-1960s, Lithgow's career has taken many odd turns with a variety of roles. Following his career on stage, where he twice won a Tony, he successfully moved into film with a number of versatile roles, with the best-known probably being Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp, Sam Burns in Terms of Endearment, Reverend Shaw Moore in Footloose, and George Henderson in the family classic Harry and the Hendersons. He has a talent for playing villains, including Burke in Blow Out, Cain in Raising Cain, Earl Talbot Blake in Ricochet, Eric Qualen in Cliffhanger, and Dr. Emilio Lizardo/Lord John Whorfin in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. His more recent films include Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Interstellar, Pet Sematary (2019), and Killers of the Flower Moon.
In 1996, Lithgow moved onto the small screen, playing lead character Dick Solomon in the oddball sci-fi sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun. The show ran until 2001 and earned him three of his five Emmy Awards. He's also lent his voice to audiobooks, dramatic readings, and animated movies, such as the first Shrek in which he played the villain Lord Farquaad. Not to mention playing Yoda in NPR's radio dramatizations of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Lithgow joined Dexter for its fourth season, playing Arthur Mitchell AKA The Trinity Killer. His complex, layered, and downright terrifying portrayal was met with widespread critical acclaim and earned him another Emmy as well as a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. He had a recurring role on How I Met Your Mother as Jerome Whittaker, and played Winston Churchill in Netflix's The Crown (2016), which earned him several awards. He has also enjoyed a career on Broadway, most recently playing real-life Agent Peacock Joseph Alsop in The Columnist.
He has a reputation as being one of the nicest people anyone could hope to meet, with fellow actors and other colleagues saying how much of a pleasure it is to work with him. He's also a talented children's entertainer, having authored many children's books and music CDs for children. In 2011 he published Drama: An Actor's Education, an autobiographical account of his life in theater.
Works with TV Tropes pages:
- Obsession (1976) as Robert La Salle
- All That Jazz (1979) as Lucas Sergeant
- Blow Out (1981) as Burke
- The World According to Garp (1982) as Roberta Muldoon
- Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) as John Valentine
- Terms of Endearment (1983) as Sam Burns
- Footloose (1984) as Rev. Shaw Moore
- The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) as Dr. Emilio Lizardo/Lord John Whorfin
- 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984) as Dr. Walter Curnow
- Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) as B.Z.
- The Manhattan Project (1986) as John Mathewson
- Harry and the Hendersons (1987) as George Henderson
- Memphis Belle (1990) as Lt. Col. Bruce Derringer
- Ricochet (1991) as Earl Talbot Blake
- At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991) as Leslie Huben
- Raising Cain (1992) as Dr. Carter Nix/Cain/Dr. Nix Sr./Josh/Margo
- Cliffhanger (1993) as Eric Qualen
- The Pelican Brief (1993) as Smith Keen
- Silent Fall (1994) as Dr. Rene Harlinger
- A Civil Action (1998) as Judge Walter J. Skinner
- Rugrats in Paris (2000) as Jean-Claude (voice)
- Shrek (2001) as Lord Farquaad (voice)
- Shrek 4 D (2003) as Ghost of Lord Farquaad (voice)
- Orange County (2002) as Bud Brumder
- The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) as Blake Edwards
- Kinsey (2004) as Alfred Seguine Kinsey
- Dreamgirls (2006) as Jerry Harris
- Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) as Edgar West
- Leap Year (2010) as Jack
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) as Charles Rodman
- New Year's Eve (2011) as Jonathan Cox (uncredited)
- The Campaign (2012) as Glenn Motch
- This Is 40 (2012) as Oliver
- Interstellar (2014) as Donald
- The Accountant (2016) as Lamar Blackburn
- Miss Sloane (2016) as Sen. Ronald Sperling
- Daddy's Home 2 (2017) as Don
- Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) as Fergus
- Late Night (2019) as Walter Lovell
- Pet Sematary (2019) as Jud
- Bombshell (2019) as Roger Ailes
- The Bubble (2022) as Tom the Studio Chairman
- Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) as Prosecutor Peter Leaward
- Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (1992) as Narrator (voice)
- Officer Buckle and Gloria (1997) as Narrator (voice)
- Bark, George (2003) as Narrator (voice)
- The Day After (TV movie, 1983) as Joe Huxley
- Faerie Tale Theatre (1 episode, 1984) as Goldilocks' Father
- Amazing Stories (1 episode, 1986) as John Walters
- Tales from the Crypt (1 episode, 1995) as Dr. Oscar Charles
- Frasier (1 episode, 1995) as Madman Martinez (voice)
- The Tuskegee Airmen (TV movie, 1995) as Sen. Conyers
- 3rd Rock from the Sun (139 episodes, 1996–2001) as Dr. Dick Solomon
- 30 Rock (1 episode, 2009) as Himself
- Dexter (12 episodes, 2009) as Arthur Mitchell
- Dexter: New Blood (1 episode, 2021) as Arthur Mitchell
- The Jungle Bunch: The Movie (TV movie, 2011) as Maurice (voice)
- How I Met Your Mother (4 episodes, 2011–14) as Jerome Whittaker
- Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (13 episodes, 2013–14) as The White Rabbit (voice)
- Drunk History (2 episodes, 2014) as William Randolph Hearst/George Washington
- Louie (1 episode, 2015) as Funny Man
- Trial & Error (13 episodes, 2017) as Larry Henderson
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (1 episode, 2018) as The Stinkbug (voice)
- The Crown (11 episodes, 2016–19) as Winston Churchill
- The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (1 episode, 2019) as Rudy Giuliani
- The Simpsons (2 episodes, 2019–22) as Himself/Augustus Redfield (voice)
- Perry Mason (8 episodes, 2020) as Elias Birchard 'E.B.' Jonathan
- Wolfboy and the Everything Factory (2 episodes, 2021) (voice)
- The Old Man (7 episodes, 2022) as Harold Harper
- The Empire Strikes Back (2 episodes, 1983) as Yoda (voice)
- Return of the Jedi (1 episode, 1996) as Yoda (voice)
- Secret Service (1977) as Captain Thorne
- Anna Christie (1977) as Mat Burke
- Once in a Lifetime (1978) as George Lewis
- Requiem for a Heavyweight (1985) as Harlan 'Mountain' McClintock
- M. Butterfly (1988–90) as Rene Gallimard
- Sweet Smell of Success (2002) as J.J. Hunsecker
- Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005–06) as Lawrence Jameson
- Twelfth Night (2007) as Malvolio
- All My Sons (2008–09) as Joe Keller
- King Lear (2014) as Lear
- A Delicate Balance (2014–15) as Tobias
- Candide (2018) as Voltaire/Dr. Pangloss
Tropes:
- Ax-Crazy: Many of his villainous roles certainly qualify as this.
- The Big Guy: At 6'4", he towers over most of his castmates.
- The Cast Showoff: Frequently finds an excuse to play piano on-screen.
- Cool Old Guy: Many of his later roles have him playing these and he's also very much one in real life.
- Evil Is Bigger: He's played a lot of villains and at 6'4, he's usually noticeably taller than the actors playing the heroes.
- Evil Is Hammy: He's very dramatic and plays a lot of villains so this trope shows up a lot in his career. Though it often doesn't make them any less intimidating.
- Evil Old Folks: He can still play reprehensible villains well into his seventies.
- Fake Brit: Even if not fully, he usually uses a Received Pronunciation accent in varying degrees in most of his roles and he is so well-respected that he could be mistaken for a British actor anyway. Lithgow spent two years in England on a Fulbright scholarship in his youth and picked up the accent without even realizing he was doing it. Played completely straight when he played no less a Briton than Winston Churchill in The Crown.
- Family Business: His mother was an actress and his father was a theatre producer and director.
- Faux Affably Evil: Many of his villainous characters are polite on the surface but pure evil underneath.
- Friend to All Children: He's a talented children's entertainer, having authored many children's books and music CDs for children.
- Large Ham: When it's called for.
- Cliffhanger, in particular, isn't just being a Large Ham; it's a pig farm the size of Nebraska.
- Which is nothing compared to the Ham Planet that is Doctor Emilio Lizardo/Lord John Whorfin in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Lithgow himself considers this his hammiest role.
- Not to mention his role as Dick Solomon on 3rd Rock from the Sun.
- Appears again in a big way when he appeared
on The Colbert Report to read Newt Gingrich's hilariously overwritten press report. - Lampshaded with a Ham-to-Ham Combat with Jon Lovitz on Saturday Night Live between Lovitz's Master Thespian and Lithgow's The Great Baudelaire, each actor trying to upstage the other.
- Real-Life Relative: His son Ian had a recurring role on 3rd Rock From The Sun as Leon, one of the students in Dick's class.
- Self-Deprecation: Lithgow titled his autobiography Drama.
- Star-Making Role: He'd been acting in films for about a decade at that point, but his turn as transsexual former NFL player Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp kicked his career into high gear, to the extent that some people incorrectly think it was his film debut.
- What Could Have Been:
- He was originally chosen for Hades in Hercules before the casting of James Woods. However, even after he recorded all of his dialogue for the film, Disney found that he didn't have the right balance of menace and comedic timing they were looking for.
- He was the first choice for the role of Doc Brown in Back to the Future before Christopher Lloyd was cast, but turned down the offer due to filming conflicts with Twilight Zone: The Movie.
- He auditioned for Jack Napier in Batman before the casting of Jack Nicholson. However, he believed that he wasn't right for the part and tried to convince Tim Burton to not cast him as the iconic comic book character.
- He was the runner-up for the role of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs before Anthony Hopkins was cast.
- He was considered for the part of Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters before the casting of Harold Ramis.
- He was the original choice to play Frasier Crane in Cheers but turned it down to focus on his film career.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Despite being American, his voice noticeably blurs the line between that dialect and one of a Brit.
