John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, poet, author, comedian and singer. He made his film debut in the comedy-drama Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972). [1] He has since then appeared in over 50 films, countless television projects and on stage. Lithgow's first appearance on stage came in 1973, in a Broadway production of The Changing Room by David Storey, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play and a Drama Desk Award. [2] [3] Some of his other theater work he performed in were My Fat Friend (1974), Trelawny of the 'Wells' (1975) and the 1976 plays A Memory of Two Mondays / 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, Secret Service and Boy Meets Girl. [3] Lithgow subsequently acted in films such as Obsession (1976), The Big Fix (1978), the 1979 films All That Jazz with Roy Scheider and Rich Kids , Blow Out (1981) starring John Travolta, and I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982). [1]
Lithgow's film breakthrough came after playing a transgender woman, Roberta Muldoon, who was a former football player, in a supporting role in the comedy-drama The World According to Garp (1982) with Robin Williams. [4] [5] [6] Lithgow was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role. [7] He then portrayed an airplane passenger who suffers from aviophobia in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). [8] Later the same year, Lithgow went on to play a science professor in the television disaster film The Day After , which won him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Special. [9] As 1983 came to a close, he also featured in Terms of Endearment , where he played the role of a banker with Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger and Jack Nicholson, thus earning Lithgow his second Academy Award nomination in the same category. [10] In addition, Lithgow had a string of main and supporting roles during the 1980s, notably in the 1984 films Footloose , The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension , 2010, Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), The Manhattan Project (1986) and Harry and the Hendersons (1987). [1]
The 1990s saw Lithgow continue to appear in various Hollywood films, namely Ricochet (1991) opposite Denzel Washington, Raising Cain (1992), Cliffhanger (1993) starring Sylvester Stallone and The Pelican Brief (1993), where he was reunited with Washington. [1] [11] He was cast in a main role in the 1996 television sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun , where he played a high-ranking commander of an alien unit of four who have been sent to Earth to retrieve information under the disguise as a university professor. [12] The show spanned over 100 episodes, during which Lithgow won one Golden Globe and three Emmy Awards for his role, [9] [13] before ending in 2001. [14] That same year, he became the character of Lord Farquaad in the animated fantasy-comedy film Shrek (2001) [15] [16]
Other roles Lithgow appeared in during the 2000s were The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) with Geoffrey Rush, where he portrayed the famed director, screenwriter and producer Blake Edwards, [17] Kinsey (2004) and Dreamgirls (2006). [1] Lithgow also starred in the short-lived sitcom Twenty Good Years (2006). [18] [19] In 2009, he joined the cast of crime show Dexter as Arthur Mitchell, a family man who lives a double life as a serial killer. [20] He appeared in a total of twelve episodes as the main antagonist on the fourth season, and for his performance, he won his second Golden Globe and fifth Emmy Award. [21] [22] [23] Lithgow's later roles during the 2010s includes the science fiction film Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), [24] the political comedy The Campaign (2012), the comedy-drama This Is 40 (2012), the sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005–14), where he performed as a guest star in four episodes in the role as the father of executive Barney Stinson, as the voice of Percy the White Rabbit in ABC's fantasy-drama and spin-off program Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (2013–14), [25] and the 2014 films Love Is Strange , alongside fellow co-star Alfred Molina, [26] The Homesman , [27] and Interstellar . [28] Other films include Daddy's Home 2 (2017), Pitch Perfect 3 (2017), a new adaptation of Stephen King's novel, Pet Sematary (2019), and Bombshell (2019). Lithgow can be seen as Winston Churchill in the television drama series The Crown (2016). [29]
Year | Title | Role(s) | Notes | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1974 | The Country Girl | Paul Unger | Television film | [101] |
1977 | Great Performances | Captain Thorne | Episode: "Secret Service" | [102] [103] |
1980 | The Oldest Living Graduate | Clarence Sickenger | Television film | [104] [105] |
Mom, the Wolfman and Me | Wally | [106] [107] | ||
Big Blonde | Herbie Morse | [108] | ||
1982 | Not In Front of the Children | Richard Carruthers | [109] [110] | |
1983 | The Day After | Professor Joe Huxley | [111] [112] [113] | |
1984 | Faerie Tale Theatre | Goldilocks' father | Episode: "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" | [114] [115] [116] |
The Glitter Dome | Sergeant Marty Wellborn | Television film | [117] [118] | |
1985–1988 | Saturday Night Live | Himself (host) | 3 episodes | [119] |
1986 | Amazing Stories | John Walters | Episode: "The Doll" | [120] [121] |
Resting Place | Major Kendall Laird | Television film | [122] | |
1987 | Baby Girl Scott | Neil Scott | [123] | |
1989 | Traveling Man | Ben Cluett | [124] | |
1990 | Ivory Hunters | Robert Carter | [125] [126] | |
1991 | The Boys | Artie Margulies | [127] [128] | |
1993 | The Country Mouse and the City Mouse | Alexander (voice) | Animated TV Special | [129] |
1994 | World War II: When Lions Roared | Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt | Television film | [130] |
1995 | Tales from the Crypt | Dr. Oscar Charles | Episode: "You, Murderer" | [131] [132] |
My Brother's Keeper | Tom Bradley / Bob Bradley | Television film | [133] | |
Frasier | Madman Martinez (voice) | Episode: "Someone to Watch Over Me" | [134] [135] | |
Redwood Curtain | Laird Riordan | Television film | [136] | |
The Tuskegee Airmen | Senator Conyers | [137] | ||
1996–2001 | 3rd Rock from the Sun | Dick Solomon | 139 episodes | [12] [138] |
1999 | Cosby | Himself | Episode: "Superstar" | [139] |
2000 | Don Quixote | Don Quixote de la Mancha Alonso Quijano | Television film | [140] [141] |
2003 | Freedom: A History of Us | Benjamin Rush Roger Williams Justice Henry Billings Brown Judge Ward Hunt (voices) | 4 episodes | [142] |
2006 | Twenty Good Years | John Mason | 13 episodes [lower-alpha 1] | [18] |
2009 | Dexter | Arthur Mitchell | 12 episodes | [20] [21] |
30 Rock | Himself | Episode: "Goodbye, My Friend" | [145] [146] | |
2011 | Prohibition | H. L. Mencken (voice) | 3 episodes | [147] [148] |
2011–2014 | How I Met Your Mother | Jerome "Jerry" Whitaker | 4 episodes | [149] [150] [151] |
2013 | Timms Valley | Ol' Gregory Timms (voice) | Pilot | [152] [153] |
2013–2014 | Once Upon a Time in Wonderland | Percy the White Rabbit (voice) | 13 episodes | [25] [154] |
2014 | Drunk History | William Randolph Hearst George Washington | 2 episodes | [155] [156] |
2015 | Louie | Funny Man | Episode: "Sleepover" | [157] [158] |
2016–2019 | The Crown | Winston Churchill | Main role (Season 1); supporting role (Seasons 2–3) 11 episodes | [29] |
2017 | Trial & Error | Professor Larry Henderson | 13 episodes | [159] |
2019, 2022 | The Simpsons | Himself (voice) Augustus "Gus" Redfield (voice) | Episodes: "I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say D'oh" "Meat Is Murder" | [160] [161] |
2019–2022 | The Late Show with Stephen Colbert | Rudy Giuliani | 4 episodes | |
2020 | Perry Mason | Elias Birchard "E.B." Jonathan | 5 episodes | [162] |
2021 | Wolfboy and the Everything Factory | Professor Chronopher (voice) | Episode: "Losing Track Of Time / Chaos Comes To Class" | [163] |
Live in Front of a Studio Audience | Phillip Drummond | Episode: " Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life " | [164] | |
Dexter: New Blood | Arthur Mitchell | Episode: "Skin of Her Teeth" | [165] | |
2022–present | The Old Man | Harold Harper | Main cast | [166] |
Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1981, 1983 | Star Wars | Yoda | Radio drama | [167] |
Year | Title | Notes | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|
1985 | The Amazing Bone | Story | |
1992 | Dr. Seuss Video Classics: Yertle the Turtle | ||
1993 | Sylvester and the Magic Pebble | ||
1998 | The Gold Rush | Documentary | [168] [169] |
1999 | Adventures in Time: The National Geographic Millennium Special | Documentary | [170] |
2000 | Culture Shock | Episode: "The Shock of the Nude: Manet's Olympia" | [171] [172] |
2001 | 95 Worlds and Counting | Documentary | [173] [174] |
2001–2010 | Nova | 6 episodes | [175] [176] [177] [178] [179] [180] |
2011 | Truly California: Our State, Our Stories | Episode: "Miracle in a Box" | [181] |
2014 | Projections of America | Documentary | [182] |
Year | Title | Role | Author | Production company | Notes | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2021 | The Sandman: Act II | Joshua Norton | Neil Gaiman, Dirk Maggs | Audible | [228] | |
Glenn Close is an American actress. In a career spanning over five decades of screen and stage, she has received numerous accolades, including three Primetime Emmy Awards, three Tony Awards and three Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for eight Academy Awards and three Grammy Awards. She is one of the few performers to be nominated for the Triple Crown of Acting and EGOT. In 2009, she received a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2016, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019.
Martha Plimpton is an American actress. Her feature-film debut was in Rollover (1981); she subsequently rose to prominence in the Richard Donner film The Goonies (1985). She has also appeared in The Mosquito Coast (1986), Shy People (1987), Running on Empty (1988), Parenthood (1989), Samantha (1991), Small Town Murder Songs (2011), Frozen II (2019), and Mass (2021).
Bernadette Peters is an American actress and singer. Over a career spanning more than six decades, she has starred in musical theatre, television and film, performed in solo concerts and released recordings. She is a critically acclaimed Broadway performer, having received seven nominations for Tony Awards, winning two, and nine Drama Desk Award nominations, winning three. Four of the Broadway cast albums on which she has starred have won Grammy Awards.
Marisa Tomei is an American actress. She gained prominence for her comedic performance in My Cousin Vinny (1992), which earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She received further nominations in the category for In the Bedroom (2001) and The Wrestler (2008).
Nathan Lane is an American actor. Since 1975, he has been seen on stage and screen in both comedic and dramatic roles. Lane has received numerous awards, including three Tony Awards, seven Drama Desk Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Lane received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2010, The New York Times hailed Lane as "the greatest stage entertainer of the decade".
Justin Guarini is an American singer, songwriter and actor who in 2002 was the runner-up on the first season of American Idol.
Alan Irwin Menken is an American composer and conductor, best known for his scores and songs for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Skydance Animation. Menken's music for The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and Pocahontas (1995) has each won him two Academy Awards. He also composed the scores and songs for Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Newsies (1992), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Home on the Range (2004), Enchanted (2007), Tangled (2010), and Disenchanted (2022), among others. His accolades include winning eight Academy Awards — becoming the second most prolific Oscar winner in the music categories after Alfred Newman, a Tony Award, eleven Grammy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and a Daytime Emmy Award. Menken is one of nineteen people to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.
Lily Rabe is an American actress. She is best known for her multiple roles on the FX anthology horror series American Horror Story (2011–2021). For her performance as Portia in the Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice, she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Aunjanue L. Ellis-Taylor is an American actress. Known for her work in several film and television productions, she has received several accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards.
Corbin Bleu Reivers is an American actor and singer. He began acting professionally in the late 1990s before rising to prominence in the late 2000s for his leading role as Chad Danforth in the High School Musical trilogy (2006–2008). Songs from the films also charted worldwide, with the song "I Don't Dance" peaking inside the Top 70 of the Billboard Hot 100. During this time, he also starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie Jump In! (2007) and the film To Write Love on Her Arms (2015). He competed in the 17th season of Dancing with the Stars.
Melissa Errico is an American actress, singer, recording artist and writer. She is known for her Broadway musical roles such as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and the title role in One Touch of Venus, as well as her recordings of musical theater classics, including albums of songs by Stephen Sondheim and Michel Legrand. In recent years she has become a contributing writer to The New York Times and served on the National Endowment for the Arts.
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor. He studied at Harvard University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before becoming known for his diverse work on stage and screen. He has received numerous accolades including six Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and four Grammy Awards. Lithgow has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2001 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2005.
Jonathan Drew Groff is an American actor and singer. Known for his performances on stage and screen, he has received several awards including a Tony Award and a Grammy Award as well as a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is an American songwriter, librettist, actor, singer, filmmaker, and rapper. He created the Broadway musicals In the Heights (2005) and Hamilton (2015), and the soundtracks for the animated films Moana (2016), Vivo, and Encanto. He has received numerous accolades including a Pulitzer Prize, three Tony Awards, two Laurence Olivier Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and five Grammy Awards, along with nominations for two Academy Awards. He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.
The following is the list of film, television and theatre credits for American actress, singer, and author Lea Michele. Michele came to worldwide prominence after being cast in the main role of Rachel Berry in the Fox musical comedy-drama series Glee (2009–15). Before global fame, Michele acted on Broadway, originating the role of Wendla Bergmann in the rock musical Spring Awakening (2006–08). As a child actress, she appeared in Les Misérables as Young Cosette, in Broadway production Ragtime she originated the role of the Little Girl and in 2004, Michele played “Shprintze” and “Chava” in the Broadway revival of the musical Fiddler on the Roof.
Phillipa Anne Soo is an American actress and singer. Known for her leading roles on Broadway primarily in musicals, she has received two Grammy Awards along with nominations for a Tony Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Cynthia Erivo is an English actress and singer. She gained recognition for starring in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple from 2015 to 2017, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Erivo ventured into films in 2018, playing roles in the heist film Widows and the thriller Bad Times at the El Royale. For her portrayal of American abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the biopic Harriet (2019), Erivo received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she also wrote and performed the song "Stand Up" on its soundtrack, which garnered her a nomination in the Best Original Song category.
Sam Waterston is an American actor and producer best known for his portrayal of district attorney Jack McCoy in the long-running police procedural and legal drama television show Law & Order.
William Fitzgerald Harper, known professionally as William Jackson Harper, is an American actor and playwright. He gained acclaim for his role as Chidi Anagonye in the NBC comedy series The Good Place (2016–2020), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
Paul Rudd is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. His career began in 1992 when he played a recurring role in the television series Sisters until 1995. In 1995, he made his film debut opposite Alicia Silverstone in the cult film Clueless, and starred as Tommy Doyle in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. The following year, he played Dave Paris in Baz Luhrmann's romantic drama Romeo + Juliet. He co-starred in the ensemble comedy film Wet Hot American Summer (2001), and had further comedic roles in Role Models (2008) with Seann William Scott and I Love You, Man (2009) with Jason Segel.