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