A biography for John Lithgowhasn’t been written yet.
“We're in the business of using real emotions to bring pretend emotions to life.”
“If you go through your life being completely truthful, everybody will hate you, and something I deeply fear is being hated.”
“It's wonderful to play a villain who gets a laugh or to stop a comedy dead in its tracks with a touching moment. It's kind of like a symphony that has very different movements.”
“I'm very concerned for the future of the earth and its amazing creatures. We've got to be careful and make sure we don't foul our own nest.”
“There's nothing like spending an evening with an audience every night.”
“There is less difference than you would imagine entertaining little children and entertaining adults.”
“I am a storyteller, and the stories I tell are, when I'm lucky, really good ones. It's a very exciting thing to do with your life, and that's, I think, what keeps me hopeful.”
“One of the things you learn as an actor is that human beings are capable of almost anything. I'm sort of in the business of illustrating that fact.”
“We moved around a lot when I was growing up. I was always the new kid in class, but I was good at making friends. With an upbringing like that, I was either going to become an actor or a politician. Thank God I became an actor! I'm not cut out for politics.”
“In TV and movies, you get known for a certain thing, and that's what's expected. Onstage, people are more open to whatever character you create from one play to the next.”
“The Broadway audience is made up of a greater percentage of tourists now. There's not nearly as much variety and danger and challenge in what's being offered.”
“Other people have often had more faith in me than I had in myself - I never thought I could pull off Roberta Muldoon in 'The World According to Garp,' or 'Of Mice and Men's' Lennie as one of my first acting jobs.”
“Money is just a low priority for me. I'm more interested in good work than a big bank account.”
“I went to Princeton High School when I was very serious about being an artist.”
“It's very important to stay creative and not simply to wait around for people to want you. It's the hardest thing about the business.”
“I look around, and 50 percent of the big-budget entertainment you are seeing these days is dystopian. This is the era of 'Hunger Games' and blasted landscapes and 'The Walking Dead.'”
“Good acting is really excellent carpentry.”
“I'd sleep under a Vermeer.”
“I was married very young. I lived a very middle class life. I was married at age 21, divorced at 31.”
“I work very hard on motivating everything I do as an actor. Explosive moments have to be completely motivated; whether they're explosive comedy or explosive horror, they have to come organically out of a scene and an interaction with another actor.”