John Lithgow Quotes

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John Lithgow

Profession : Actor

Birth : October 19, 1945

When I was 13 years old, I went to visit my aunt and uncle in Washington, D.C., and they just deposited me at the National Gallery. I would go from Rembrandt to Picasso - I remember that experience so vividly.

John Lithgow

When you end a successful sitcom, the most sensible thing to do is go back to the theater.

John Lithgow

To my mum, I owe security in a very insecure young life. We lived in about 10 different places because of my father's chequered career, and she always made me feel a sense of consistency and security. I was a well-mothered boy.

John Lithgow

We all grow up with inherited genes and inherited sensibilities, and they run very, very deep.

John Lithgow

Oh, I'm dying to play Donald Trump someday, just because he's an unbelievable character. I'm a character actor; that's what you look for: outsized human beings.

John Lithgow

Voice work is fun. But about three-quarters of the things you enjoy about acting are just not there. You're not working with another actor; you're not working with an audience. You're just working with a bunch of writers and a microphone. It's very abstract.

John Lithgow

I'm a lazy actor, lazier than you would think. I don't usually do a lot of research.

John Lithgow

I'm probably a better granddad than dad because your role as a grandfather is to be fun, and I'm fun.

John Lithgow

I'm getting older, but better, too. And the roles are getting better.

John Lithgow

If I don't enjoy it, there's something seriously wrong. There's a reason why they call it playing, what we do. It's ecstatic fun, and I overdo it - I mean, I can't seem to stop - people ask me to act, and I say yes.

John Lithgow

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.

John Lithgow

I loved growing up in Ohio.

John Lithgow

'M. Butterfly' is usually the answer to the question, 'What has been your favorite experience?' The reason being, it is an astonishing play.

John Lithgow

I was married very young. I lived a very middle class life. I was married at age 21, divorced at 31.

John Lithgow

It's a very tough time for the playwright. Broadway has become almost a musical comedy theme park with all these long-running shows.

John Lithgow

I'm as vain as the next person, but I've made so much fun of myself over the years, and that's very salutary as you grow older.

John Lithgow

If a film is about love, it tends to be about tortured love or discovering love or young love. It's not this wonderful kind of comfortable, old resilient love.

John Lithgow

Comedy is very, very hard to achieve.

John Lithgow

If you go through your life being completely truthful, everybody will hate you, and something I deeply fear is being hated.

John Lithgow

I love New York. I lived there all through the '70s and have lived in L.A. since the early '80s but come back all the time to do theater.

John Lithgow