On a bright, crisp London morning, John Lithgow stands on a Hampstead street, amiably waving passersby along as he waits for the photographer to set up. You can see the flash of recognition as they spot this tall, imposing man in a dark hat, smiling in their direction. The question is, how do they know him? He could be the suburban serial killer from Dexter, the conniving Cardinal Tremblay in Conclave, Churchill from The Crown, or the alien in 3rd Rock From the Sun. Lithgow’s career has spanned comedy to musical theater, from murderers to monsters. “You cannot live in this world and consume culture without running into John Lithgow,” says actor Aya Cash.
Cash is about to star alongside Lithgow in Mark Rosenblatt’s celebrated play about children’s book author Roald Dahl, Giant, which arrives on Broadway in March after an acclaimed run in London last year. As Dahl, Lithgow captures a man who is witty, charming, and ferociously intelligent—and also one whose legacy is complicated by antisemitism and a streak of malice.
According to Lithgow, director Nicholas Hytner imagined him in the role because he was the only “gangly actor he could think of that was old, bald, six-foot-four-inches tall, and had Dahl’s lantern jaw,” as Lithgow wrote in the program for the London production. Not at all, says Hytner. “John is brilliant,” he says. “Even though he is the sweetest man, he does have the most extraordinary talent for playing monstrous characters.”
It is Lithgow’s sweetness that is very much on display when we meet. “You dress me how I wish I had the courage to dress myself,” he says to the stylist, insisting on getting a group shot of the crew. He exclaims with delight when the photographer shows him a picture from his first movie—“All that hair!”—and shares his own snaps of his new grandson and of pop star Boy George, whom he met on one of his walks around Hampstead.
For the foreseeable future, Lithgow will be based in this north London neighborhood with his historian wife, Mary Yeager, while he plays Albus Dumbledore in a new HBO Harry Potter series. He is reveling in being back in the British theater community, which he’s loved since attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on a Fulbright grant in 1967. Born in Rochester, New York, to a retired actress mother and a director father who specialized in Shakespeare, he first arrived in London after graduating from Harvard and now lives mainly in Los Angeles, spending summers in Montana, where Yeager is from. “On my first night, I bumped into Claire Foy, who was my queen,” he says, referring to their roles in The Crown. “It was just wonderful.” His voice is a rich, rolling drawl, perhaps a legacy of childhood participation in his father’s productions. His 80th birthday party, held in London last year, was “one of the best parties I’ve ever been to because he’s made so many friends in Britain,” says Hytner. “And it’s absolutely not fake, because every now and then he will reveal an acerbic opinion. So you know the warmth, the generosity—it’s real.”
For Lithgow, the gathering had special significance. “As well as I know England, and as many friends as I have here, I still feel like a Yank.” He is in double exile, not only from Los Angeles and from his family—three children and four grandchildren, the youngest just four months old when we meet—but from his retreat in Montana. “It was the first summer since 1990 that I have not gotten there at all, which I really consider a tragedy,” he says with a wide smile.
CHAMPION OF THE WORLD
“It’s an unbelievable role,” says Lithgow of playing Dahl.
By now we are sitting in The Holly Bush pub, and Lithgow’s pleasure in the restaurant and the food—sole for him, bass for me, and a glass of dry white wine for both of us—is again irresistible. “All these years…”I’ve been trying to convince Mary, a professor at UCLA for many years, to live in New York, and now here we are in London. She’s wonderfully sharp on the subject.
As he speaks, you sense the depth of his love for Yeager, whom he married 44 years ago after his first marriage ended in divorce. “Being married to an actor like John is living with wonderful surprises all the time,” she tells me. “The careers were challenging because I was teaching full-time in Los Angeles and he was in New York, going back and forth. I don’t know how we did it, really, but we have reached the young age of 80 together.” Her relationship with Lithgow has thrived in their differences: “I have visited only three sets in his career because when I see him as someone else, I can’t be there.” But she has seen Giant three times. “I just loved it every time I went.”
In the last few years, Lithgow has packed in an extraordinary range of work, from Conclave to independent films like the sensitive Jimpa and the horror film The Rule of Jenny Pen. In February of last year, he reprised a performance in choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s Carnival of the Animals for the New York City Ballet. “When we first did it in 2003, he would come to ballet class every day in a white T-shirt and black tights,” Wheeldon remembers. “John always wants to immerse himself fully in the worlds that he’s being asked to inhabit.”
That desire shows no signs of letting up. “It’s time to consider: How do I spend my last decade?” Lithgow says. “In the last few years, I’ve grown into my role as a character actor… old men dealing with these primal, mortal dilemmas.” Churchill was prime minister until he was 80, he notes; Roger Ailes, whom Lithgow played in the film Bombshell (2019), faced sexual harassment allegations at 76; and now Dahl takes his place among this roster.
Though Dahl is beloved as a children’s writer, his reputation has been colored by debate about whether you can separate a man’s art from his personality. His books, including James and the Giant Peach (1961), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), The BFG (1982), and Matilda (1988), have been adored by generations. Perhaps more than any other author, he shifted the morality tale of midcentury children’s literature to something more cheekily clever. His sensibility could veer into savagery; villains were often violent and hateful. And more seriously, he made statements that were antisemitic. In 2020, his family apologized for his antisemitic opinions, but he never did.
Giant, which won three Olivier Awards last year (including best new play), depicts a lunch in 1983 at Dahl’s home in the English village of Great Missenden. There, a representative from his American publisher (an invented figure played by Cash) and the managing director of his British publisher, Tom Maschler (a real-life figure played by Elliot Levey), are meeting Dahl and his fiancée, Felicity “Liccy” Crosland (Rachael Stirling), to attempt to head off a disaster caused by a book review Dahl has written concerning Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
The lunch is imagined, but the review and the contentious opinions expressed by Dahl are real. In one line, quoted in the play, Dahl writes: “Never before in the history of man has a race of people switched so rapidly from being much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers.” A furor erupted. In Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl (2010), his biographer Donald Sturrock describes how even Crosland was shocked by Dahl’s excess. “His rhetoric, though sympathetic to the Palestinians, got the better of him,” Sturrock writes.
The first draft of Giant was written before the attacks of October 7, 2023, but the ongoing hostilities in the Middle East make the play’s historical arguments—about the rights of Israel, about the rights of Palestinians—seem frighteningly relevant. The strength of the play has less to do with taking sides than with its exploration of the complex, often ugly, intersection of art, personality, and public responsibility.However, its appeal has less to do with current relevance and more to do with its nuanced exploration of prejudice, as well as Dahl’s own blend of generosity, wit, anger, and venom. “The impulse to translate the world into art isn’t the same as what makes someone a good person,” notes Hytner.
“It’s an unbelievable role,” says Lithgow. “Like red meat… There’s this myth that Dahl didn’t actually like children. But whether he loved them or not, he was passionately committed to entertaining them.” For Lithgow, understanding Dahl begins with recognizing the tragedies in his life: losing his father young, enduring abuse at boarding schools, nursing his first wife Patricia Neal back to health after a stroke, a son suffering brain damage in an accident, and the death of his seven-year-old daughter Olivia from measles. “These terrible, terrible losses,” as Lithgow puts it, profoundly shaped Dahl’s worldview.
LEAN IN
“John always fully immerses himself in the worlds he’s asked to inhabit,” says choreographer Christopher Wheeldon.
Lithgow has never avoided roles that grapple with damage or prejudice. He earned his first Oscar nomination for his deeply sympathetic portrayal of a transgender character in The World According to Garp (1982), and in 2014’s tender Love Is Strange, he played one half of a same-sex couple who marry after 39 years together. “You always feel a great sense of pride and relief when you’re tackling what people should be thinking about,” he says.
We’re nearing the end of a two-hour lunch. Lithgow, who describes himself as “kind of cocky about my youthfulness,” admits that filming Harry Potter is a bit daunting. “There’s the makeup, hair, 20-pound costumes, high-heeled shoes, and long, long hours.” He pauses. “I hope I make it to the wrap party,” he laughs.
His buoyancy returns as he talks about the culture created by showrunner Francesca Gardiner, with some 200 young cast members attending “the greatest prep school—the Harry Potter backstage.” That positive environment has helped counterbalance the controversy surrounding the series, including open letters and social media posts accusing J.K. Rowling of transphobia. “I spend a lot of my life oblivious,” Lithgow says, explaining how the reaction took him by surprise, “and perhaps that’s what upset people who considered me a straight ally of all things gender-fluid. Ultimately, I’m working on a project based on a remarkable series of books that have meant so much to millions of people.”
Lithgow himself has written nine picture books for children. “My stuff is fun, entertaining, loopy, and interactive,” he says. “His children’s writing is entirely generous,” adds Hytner. In the end, Lithgow is a man who loves using his intelligence and skill to inhabit almost any role, which accounts for his career’s longevity. “We actors don’t choose nearly as much as you think we do,” he says with a wry smile. “You wait for good things—good writing, good people… You have to be a journeyman when it’s lousy and do everything you can to make it not lousy.”
Then something like Giant comes along. This time, his smile is one of pure pleasure. “I can’t wait to play this part again on Broadway. Everybody is gripped by this play, throttled by it. I just feel, oh boy, I’ve caught a big fish.”
In this story: grooming by Hiroki Kojima; tailoring by Nafisa Tosh. Produced by North Six.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about John Lithgow stepping into a major role in Broadways Giant designed to sound like questions from real theatergoers
General Beginner Questions
Q Whats the big news about John Lithgow and Broadways Giant
A The acclaimed actor John Lithgow has joined the cast of the new Broadway musical Giant taking on a major leading role
Q What role is John Lithgow playing
A He is playing the central role of Jordan Bick Benedict Jr a Texas rancher at the heart of the epic family saga
Q What is Giant about
A Giant is a new musical adaptation of Edna Ferbers classic novel Its an epic story about a Texas ranching family exploring themes of love power oil and social change across generations
Q Is this a play or a musical
A It is a fullscale musical with a score by Michael John LaChiusa and a book by Sybille Pearson
Q When and where is it playing
A It is scheduled for the 20242025 Broadway season The exact theater and specific dates are still to be announced
About John Lithgows Involvement
Q Has John Lithgow been in a Broadway musical before
A Yes He is a Tony Awardwinning actor He won a Tony for The Sweet Smell of Success and has been nominated for others including for the play The Columnist Hes a seasoned stage performer
Q Why is his casting such a big deal
A Lithgow is a beloved and highly respected actor with major star power His involvement brings significant attention and credibility to a large ambitious new musical assuring audiences of a highquality production
Q Was he in the original film version of Giant
A No he was not The 1956 film starred Rock Hudson Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean Lithgow is taking on the role made famous by Hudson
Q Is he replacing another actor
A No this is the original Broadway production He is the first actor to play this role in