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He's done it all -- the good, the bad, the sad and the really funny. That's probably what comes to mind when people think of John Lithgow. The award-winning actor starred in the television series "Third Rock From the Sun" as a leader of an alien band studying Earth. Now his followers are on Twitter, and they continue to fill the seats for his stage performances.
This summer the 63-year-old Harvard grad has been hosting TCM's "Essentials Jr." The program showcases movies that make good entry points for teens into the world of classic cinema. Being a children's book author and an actor made him ideal for the job.
Did you have any input as to what makes a film worthy of teens?
See the The answer is yes. That is exactly the mission of "Essentials Jr.," to sort of introduce younger people and families to the whole great history of movie making and what our great heritage is in this area. All of us who were involved in "Essentials Jr.," we just brainstormed about the movies that we loved when we were young. They are films that just captivate you. You know, you don't think of them as films for young people. They can be very sophisticated, and yet I certainly remember "Philadelphia Story" from when I was a kid because it's just a great film. Even at a young age, I knew great storytelling and I knew great acting, and that's kind of the idea.
So, I see you got into the Twitter thing.
You know, I'm writing a book, and my publisher urged me to get onto Twitter, which was the first time I'd ever heard the word Twitter in my life, at least in this context. They set me up and in no time at all 10,000 people are following me [laughing]. Sure enough I guess it's the best publicity you could possibly generate for very cheap.
What are you writing about?
It's a memoir that I'm certainly taking my time writing. It was triggered by a one-man show that I created last year and which I have revived and am performing at Lincoln Center in New York. In fact, I've introduced a second edition of it. It's called "Stories By Heart," and it's half acting and half just kind of talking about my own life and the various things that turned me into an actor -- that is, a storyteller.
You are a prolific children's book writer.
Yes, I've done eight of those, and they are much easier than memoirs, I'll tell you [laughing].
In the process of actually writing down your life, has anything struck you about what you've accomplished, where you've been?
So much of it I've carried around with me all my life. I didn't really just want to write a chronological autobiography. I'm not a huge fan of reading books like that, but that is what you tend to fall into. In many ways I'm just sort of tracking what turned me into an actor. What draws a person to performing for people. The interesting fact in my case is that I didn't really want to be an actor. It was the family business, but how it was my destiny whether I wanted it to be or not. Anyway, I'm just about up to graduating from high school.
High school is a painful place for a lot of people. How about you?
You know what, those were kind of my interesting young years. I lived in eight different places. You would have thought I was a service brat or something. It was because my father was a theater producer, and we moved around from town to town. He created Shakespeare festivals. He was known as the Johnny Appleseed of Shakespeare out in Ohio. We were moving all the time. I was lucky enough to string two years together, my last two years of high school. By that time I'd become very, very good at fitting in fast and making myself popular almost immediately. In other words, I was turning into an actor [laughing].
That's a book some teens would read -- "How to Get Popular Fast."
Yep, but believe me, you don't want to do it that way. It was extremely traumatic moving from place to place. You just become thick-skinned. I was either going to become an actor or a politician. I'm too spineless to be a politician [laughing].
Speaking of thick-skinned, the audience is key to a live performance. What's it like when they don't engage?
It's not nearly as fun as when they do. You just have to soldier on. I mean the cocky, arrogant answer to that is when I'm on stage people are always engaged. But, of course, that's not true. If a show really doesn't hold an audience, the agony doesn't last forever. The show closes.
When did you first have a notion of your own success?
I had a couple of wonderful moments on stage in my teen years, but, as I say, I was not intending to be an actor. I was much more interested in being an artist. I was actually quite serious about that. But when I got to college, Harvard, I fell into the theater gang immediately. I was a very experienced actor, far more than anybody else, just purely by osmosis. I was a campus star, and if you are a star at anything at Harvard, you go with the flow. It's such a competitive atmosphere. You know, I had a couple of just gigantic successes on stage. Literally, moments when people would not stop applauding. That does it. You have that experience and you are done for -- you are going to be an actor.
So it's a little addictive.
It is addictive and it's so deliriously fun. Earlier in my career, when I first joined the profession, I was more successful as a director than an actor. I was offered a job to be the associate artistic director of a repertory theater in Baltimore. I sort of threw up my hands and accepted the job because I couldn't get started as an actor. About two weeks later, I finally got a wonderful repertory season of acting roles, and I pulled out of the directing job, took the acting job and, really, I've never looked back since. I think about six months later I won a Tony Award. For me, acting completely fulfills my creative mission.
You say it fills your creative mission, but from what I've read and heard you say, it almost seems to satisfy most of your needs and wants.
Well, I just love it. When it goes well, there is nothing like connecting with people that way and feeling like you are offering everything you have. When you are successful as an actor you are a very lucky person.
