Does John Lithgow Know His Lines?

Variety

John Lithgow talks about his most famous film and TV projects, his return to Dexter, and taking on the role of Dumbledore next.

Transcript

00:00Oh, of course.

00:01Oh, wow.

00:02This is familiar and elusive.

00:05I was kind of hoping this would turn up.

00:14Ah, this is so cool.

00:15Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

00:20Lord Farquaad, from Shrek.

00:22Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make.

00:29I thought it was like a Saturday morning cartoon or something.

00:32Not a big deal.

00:34I read my dialogue.

00:36They showed me a maquette of this little character, Lord Farquaad.

00:39And they showed me a lot of storyboards, animated storyboards.

00:43And I thought, well, this looks like fun.

00:45And these writers were all there.

00:47And they sort of pitched what was funny about this character.

00:50The curious thing was, that was like four years before we ever saw Shrek.

00:55And they would bring me back in once every eight months or so to record some new material.

01:00And it was like, oh, I've got to do this Shrek thing again?

01:02What is this?

01:03Chris Farley was the original Shrek, and he passed away.

01:07They had to bring in Mike Myers.

01:08Mike Myers recorded the whole thing.

01:10Then they decided he should use his Scottish accent from his great SNL sketches.

01:16So there were all sorts of things that prolonged the process.

01:19Okay, next.

01:22Oh, wow.

01:23This is familiar and elusive.

01:27If I were you, I'd give up vigilantism.

01:31You're not very good at it.

01:34I think that's Dexter.

01:36Yes, that's the...

01:38You know, so I have to do it as the Trinity Killer.

01:41If I were you, I'd give up vigilantism.

01:44You're not very good at it.

01:46If I were you, I'd give up vigilantism.

01:48You're not very good at it.

01:50The writers had created this character

01:52very much based on various very plain and ordinary and innocuous men

02:00who had this horrifying other side to them.

02:04A TV guide wrote a review of Dexter.

02:06It was very complimentary to me,

02:09but it did call me a bland blob of a man.

02:14I chose to take that as a compliment.

02:16That was what I was after.

02:18So you ask, how did I prepare?

02:21I was just as boring as I could be.

02:23I just went back to do a day.

02:25They're rebooting the entire Michael C. Hall version of Dexter,

02:30and it turns out he didn't die after all,

02:33and I come back sort of as a phantom

02:36as he gradually comes to life on a hospital bed.

02:43I was a terrible bully.

02:46I was a terrible bully.

02:49No memory at all.

02:50I was a...oh!

02:54I was a terrible bully.

02:57That's Winston Churchill in The Crown.

03:00Thank you for the hint.

03:02I was a terrible bully.

03:04All of the actors had been changed.

03:07Elizabeth and Anne and Charles and Philip and Mountain.

03:12Everybody was changed except me.

03:14And I was an afterthought at that.

03:17The first episode was entirely built around Churchill's funeral,

03:21and late in their eight-month-long season,

03:25they had a shoot.

03:27They had a look at the episode, the first episode,

03:31and realized the funeral doesn't quite work

03:34unless we get another glimpse of Churchill,

03:37and it was just too important

03:39that it be the same one that we remembered from one and two.

03:43So people are getting a little tired of my British accent.

03:47I have a lot of catching up to do.

03:49I don't know the Harry Potter canon by heart,

03:52as 98% of the entire world's population seems to.

03:57It was a huge decision

04:00because it involves the next several years of my life,

04:04and I'm not young.

04:05I mean, this is the last big role I'll probably play.

04:10I was a huge admirer of Michael Gambon.

04:13I never met him, but I always kind of idolized him.

04:17And Michael Gambon and I happened to have the same birthday,

04:21so I thought that was a kind of wizard-like touch.

04:25This is really such a memory lane.

04:27I can't believe it.

04:29Oh, of course.

04:30I was kind of hoping this would turn up.

04:32Oh, my God!

04:35I'm gorgeous!

04:37Which is pretty much how I played the entire role

04:40of High Commander Dick Solomon in Third Rock from the Sun.

04:44Oh, my God!

04:46I'm gorgeous!

04:48It was when the aliens were dealing

04:51with this whole thing about aging

04:53and the obsession with looking young.

04:55Bonnie and Terry Turner were very good friends of mine

04:59on the basis of two episodes,

05:01two of the three episodes I hosted on Saturday Night Live.

05:05I became friends with Bonnie and Terry.

05:07And as Bonnie described it, they needed someone

05:11who was a cross between Errol Flynn and Bugs Bunny.

05:15And on the basis of working with me on SNL,

05:18they thought it was me or nobody.

05:20If I hadn't done it, they wouldn't have done it.

05:23So it was very much created for my own kind of bag of tricks,

05:28I guess you say,

05:30and my sort of lunatic willingness to do anything.

05:35This is really fun.

05:37Popcorn at a ballgame is unnatural.

05:41I want a hot dog.

05:44I think that's interstellar, am I right? Yes.

05:48Popcorn at a ballgame is unnatural.

05:51I want a hot dog.

05:53We go see the New York Yankees play

05:56what looks like a community recreation center ball field

06:02because there's only 10% of the world's population left,

06:06and yet we're trying to keep alive the way things used to be.

06:11And of course I was the old man.

06:14I was the granddad of Timothee Chalamet, I might add.

06:17I considered Chris Nolan's masterpiece,

06:20but he's come up with a few masterpieces.

06:22I had a great time, and I got to work with Timothee

06:25to make him turn into a superstar,

06:27a much, much, much bigger deal than I am.

06:31Oh, of course, I thought I might see this.

06:34Kill a few people, they call you a murderer.

06:37Kill a million, and you're a conqueror.

06:40Go figure.

06:42That was, uh...

06:45Eric Qualen was his name.

06:47It took me a while to remember the name in Cliffhanger.

06:50Kill a few people, they call you a murderer.

06:53Kill a million, and you're a conqueror.

06:56Go figure.

06:58My corniest villain, but it's...

07:01It's, uh, it's survived the test of time.

07:05And with Sly Stallone, the big climax is a huge fight to the death

07:10with Sylvester Stallone on the belly of an upended helicopter,

07:15sort of harnessed to a mountain rock face

07:1830,000 feet above sea level.

07:21And at the end, after pommeling each other,

07:25this huge battle royal,

07:28the helicopter comes loose and falls all the way down and crashes.

07:32The best death I've ever had.

07:35Doing a big fight scene with Sly Stallone?

07:38That's top of the food chain.

07:43A writer?

07:45What do you have to write about?

07:47You're not oppressed. You're not gay.

07:49A writer?

07:51What do you have to write about?

07:53You're not oppressed. You're not gay.

07:55It must be a movie about a writer.

07:58Is it World According to Dark?

08:00You're gonna have to tell me. I don't know what this is.

08:03How great! Oh, how great!

08:06I should have known!

08:08This is a line written by the great Mike White.

08:12And just on the basis of that, I should have known.

08:16A writer?!

08:18What do you have to write about? You're not oppressed. You're not gay.

08:21Their original idea for this was John Goodman.

08:25I think they asked him to play it,

08:27and he either turned it down or was not available.

08:30And they went to me.

08:32And I always felt that he would have been so much better in the role.

08:35But I had a great, great time.

08:37And nowadays, White Lotus days, I can say,

08:40Oh, yes, I've worked with Mike White.

08:44We've got some big guns and some big, big guns,

08:48but I'm afraid we're all out of big, big ammo.

08:51I can't even take a stab at this.

08:54Oh, my God, this would be from Harry and the Hendersons.

08:58Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

09:00Well, we've got some big guns and some big, big guns,

09:04but I'm afraid we're all out of big, big ammo.

09:06It was a wonderful actor named Kevin Peter Hall

09:10who died too young.

09:12Just a lovely man.

09:14He had the good and bad fortune to be 7'3", I think.

09:19And he had on an extraordinary Bigfoot head

09:24that had an animatronic face.

09:28These guys would operate little game toggle devices

09:33to control all the tiny muscles in Harry's face.

09:39That was it.

09:41You know, it was very realistic.

09:43It was not CGI at all.

09:45It was...

09:49I'm standing up here before you today

09:52with a very troubled heart.

09:54I think that has to be Reverend Shawmore in Footloose.

09:57Am I right?

09:59I'm standing up here before you today

10:05with a very troubled heart.

10:08My favorite story about Footloose,

10:10when I was doing Third Rock from the Sun,

10:12we had this dumb episode.

10:14They were all dumb.

10:15Dumb and wonderful.

10:17Where we were in a circus sideshow.

10:20Somehow we had ended up an act in a freak show.

10:24And there was a young actor,

10:27tall, gorgeous, hunky guy

10:29who played the circus strongman.

10:32And it was a two-day party.

10:34He took me aside at one point and said,

10:37I just want to tell you,

10:39I come from a little town in Louisiana.

10:42And my daddy was the Baptist minister in that town.

10:46Footloose came to town.

10:48I saw Footloose.

10:50And you were my daddy.

10:53We were not allowed to dance.

10:55We weren't allowed to listen to that music.

10:58And I took my daddy to that movie the next night

11:02without telling him anything.

11:04At that time, literally, tears were running down his cheeks

11:07because of your performance.

11:09I was the first of six children

11:11who got to go to his high school prom.

11:14And I listened to that like, oh, my God.

11:18This was my teeny bopper movie.

11:21I never really gave it the respect it deserved

11:25until I heard that story.

11:27It just shows you,

11:28you never know what you're throwing out there.

11:31This is so much fun.

11:33Oh, good.

11:36You're a very rude young woman.

11:38I know Douglas from the Rotary,

11:40and I can't believe he'd want you treating customers so badly.

11:44Now, I can also quote the next two lines,

11:47and then you'll recognize this too.

11:49She responds, oh, I don't think I was rude.

11:52And then my answer to her is,

11:54one of the most famous lines I ever spoke.

11:57Then you must be from New York.

12:00That was Terms of Endearment.

12:02You're a very rude young woman.

12:04I know Douglas from the Rotary,

12:06and I can't believe he'd want you treating customers so badly.

12:09I did this concurrently with Footloose.

12:13Herb Ross had us for two weeks to rehearse

12:17before Footloose started shooting,

12:19and I got a call on a Saturday morning from my agent

12:24saying they want you to replace an actor

12:28in Terms of Endearment.

12:30There had been another actor playing the role of Sam Burns,

12:35and he'd played two scenes,

12:37and they just decided this is not right.

12:40They asked Herb if he would spring me loose for a week

12:44to come and shoot the entire role of Sam Burns,

12:48and Herb said no, that he couldn't do without me for that week.

12:51And I had read the script.

12:53I thought, oh, my God, I've got to be in this movie.

12:56It's going to be so great.

12:58Honestly, I'd rather do this than Footloose.

13:01Fortunately, both films were produced by Paramount,

13:05and Barry Diller and Jeffrey Katzenberg

13:08were in charge of Terms of Endearment and Footloose.

13:12They were both Paramount films,

13:14and they said to Herb,

13:16you're going to spring him loose,

13:18and he's going to be in Terms of Endearment.

13:20Otherwise, I never would have been in, like,

13:23the best movie I've ever been in.

13:26With an Oscar nomination for 5 Days of Work.

13:31Aha! Your own ambition has not gone unnoticed.

13:35It might be seen as a tactic to blacken the name of a rival.

13:40That's Cardinal Tremblay in Conclave.

13:43Your own ambition has not gone unnoticed.

13:47This might be seen as a tactic to blacken the name of a rival.

13:52This was from my favorite scene with Ralph Fiennes,

13:55who is one of the great scene partners I've ever had.

13:58You know, it's been an amazing 2 years,

14:01because in this 2 years I worked with Rafe and Olivia Colman

14:05and Jeffrey Rush and Jeff Bridges.

14:08I mean, just wonderful, big, big star scene partners.

14:14They made me look real good.

14:18That's all you men understand is violence.

14:21I think that must be Roberta Muldoon in World According to Garp.

14:25That's all you men understand is violence.

14:27Roberta was a funny-looking character, funny-looking,

14:31and every line she said was ironic.

14:34But then there's a scene where Garp goes jogging with Roberta,

14:38and at a certain point she gets winded and breathes heavily

14:42and bursts into tears, and Garp asks her what's wrong,

14:46and she talks about how sad she is that she can't have children.

14:50Suddenly it became a serious character as well as a funny one,

14:54which was the beauty of that role, both in the novel and in the film.

15:00That's the nature of this line.

15:02That's Stephen Tessitch's very particular ironic humor,

15:06which has such great subtlety and complexity.

15:10That's all you men understand. It's violence.

15:13That's a man himself who lived in a very violent profession,

15:19until he chose to become a woman.

15:22Funny and heartbreaking at the same time.

15:25Oh, we're having more fun than we've had in donkey's years.

15:29Oh, gosh, this is fairly recent.

15:33What is this?

15:37Oh, it would have to be...

15:40Is it The Rule of Jenny Penn?

15:42Having more fun than we've had in donkey's years, isn't that right, Jenny?

15:46I can't remember the context. I just saw it last week.

15:51We're having more fun than we've had in donkey's years.

15:54If you had somehow been able to phonetically write it in a New Zealand accent,

15:59I would have gotten it in no time.

16:01Okay, finale.

16:05Okay.

16:06Of course, there's a man on the wing of this plane.

16:11That, of course, is John Valentine in Twilight Zone, the movie,

16:16directed by George Miller,

16:19when I have seen a monster on the wing of the plane, out the plane window.

16:23There's a man on the wing of this plane!

16:28That would be on my list of the, well, I guess,

16:32the five or six career-defining lines I ever spoke.

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