John Lithgow

John Lithgow

Born 1945-10-19 (age 80) Rochester, New York, USA
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Biography

John Arthur Lithgow (born October 19, 1945) 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 Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, four Grammy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award.

Lithgow won two Tony Awards, his first for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his Broadway debut in The Changing Room (1972) and his second for Best Actor in a Musical for the musical Sweet Smell of Success (2002). He was Tony-nominated for Requiem for a Heavyweight (1985), M. Butterfly (1988), and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005). He has acted in the plays The Columnist (2012), A Delicate Balance (2014), and Hillary and Clinton (2019). He portrayed Roald Dahl in the play Giant on the West End, for which he was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor. 

He starred as Dick Solomon in the television sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001), winning three Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. He received further Primetime Emmy Awards for his performances as Arthur Mitchell in the drama Dexter (2009) and as Winston Churchill in the Netflix drama The Crown (2016–2019). He also starred in HBO's Perry Mason (2020) and FX's The Old Man (2022).

On film, he has received two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor nominations for his roles as a transgender ex-football player in The World According to Garp (1982) and a lonely banker in Terms of Endearment (1983). He also acted in All That Jazz (1979), Blow Out (1981), Footloose (1984), Harry and the Hendersons (1987), A Civil Action (1998), Shrek (2001), Kinsey (2004), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Love Is Strange (2014), Interstellar (2014), Late Night (2019), Bombshell (2019), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), and Conclave (2024).

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Known For

Interstellar
Interstellar

2014

as Donald

Shrek
Shrek

2001

as Lord Farquaad (voice)

Conclave
Conclave

2024

as Tremblay

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011

as Charles Rodman

Killers of the Flower Moon
Killers of the Flower Moon

2023

as Prosecutor Peter Leaward

The Accountant
The Accountant

2016

as Lamar Blackburn

Spellbound
Spellbound

2024

as Bolinar (voice)

Cliffhanger
Cliffhanger

1993

as Qualen

Footloose
Footloose

1984

as Rev. Shaw Moore

Leap Year
Leap Year

2010

as Jack Brady

Pitch Perfect 3
Pitch Perfect 3

2017

as Fergus

Daddy's Home 2
Daddy's Home 2

2017

as Don

Pet Sematary
Pet Sematary

2019

as Jud Crandall

2010
2010

1984

as Dr. Walter Curnow

The Pelican Brief
The Pelican Brief

1993

as Smith Keen

The Rule of Jenny Pen
The Rule of Jenny Pen

2025

as Dave Crealy

Confessions of a Shopaholic
Blow Out
Blow Out

1981

as Burke

Bombshell
Bombshell

2019

as Roger Ailes

Miss Sloane
Miss Sloane

2016

as Senator Ronald Sperling