
John Lithgow
Acting
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).
Known For

1989
The Simpsons
1989 · tv

2009
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
2009 · tv

1962
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1962 · tv

1996
The Daily Show
1996 · tv

2015
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
2015 · tv

2014
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
2014 · tv

2014
Late Night with Seth Meyers
2014 · tv

2006
Dexter
2006 · tv

2007
The Graham Norton Show
2007 · tv

2019
The Kelly Clarkson Show
2019 · tv

2016
The Crown
2016 · tv

1975
Saturday Night Live
1975 · tv

2005
How I Met Your Mother
2005 · tv

2022
Sherri
2022 · tv

2010
Conan
2010 · tv

1993
Frasier
1993 · tv

2014
Interstellar
2014 · movie

2005
The Colbert Report
2005 · tv

1974
NOVA
1974 · tv

2015
The Late Late Show with James Corden
2015 · tv

1997
The View
1997 · tv

1944
Golden Globe Awards
1944 · tv

2006
30 Rock
2006 · tv

2003
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
2003 · tv

1956
Tony Awards
1956 · tv

1971
Great Performances
1971 · tv

2006
The One Show
2006 · tv

1993
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
1993 · tv

1996
3rd Rock from the Sun
1996 · tv

2001
Shrek
2001 · movie