John Lithgow just wants a good ending

Summary

Wild Card with Rachel Martin: John Lithgow Just Wants a Good Ending

Released on December 5, 2024

In this compelling episode of NPR's Wild Card, host Rachel Martin engages in a thought-provoking and intimate conversation with the versatile actor John Lithgow. Breaking away from traditional interview formats, the episode employs an interactive game using a special deck of cards that delve into profound life questions, allowing Lithgow to share personal stories, insights, and reflections on his multifaceted career and personal experiences.

---

Introduction: A Multifaceted Talent

Rachel Martin opens the episode by highlighting John Lithgow's extensive and diverse career. From iconic roles such as Reverend Shaw Moore in Footloose (00:01) to the patriarch Dick Solomon in 3rd Rock from the Sun, Lithgow has consistently showcased his ability to embody a wide range of characters with depth and nuance. Martin emphasizes Lithgow's commitment to his craft, referencing his recent works including the Hulu series The Old Man, the film Conclave, and the animated movie Spellbound.

“John Lithgow seems to have done all the things theater, movies, TV, good guys, bad guys, lots of bad guys, or just maybe complicated characters.” (01:04)

---

Childhood and Family Dynamics

The conversation begins with a nostalgic dive into Lithgow's childhood. When asked about an experience that revealed his parents' humanity, Lithgow recounts a moment from fifth grade where he walked in on his parents in an intimate setting.

“In fifth grade, I did walk in on them making love at like seven in the morning under a great big quilt. I didn't see anything fleshly, but it was clear what was going on.” (00:25)

This revelation underscores the universal realization of parents as complex individuals, not just authority figures, shaping Lithgow's understanding of human relationships from a young age.

---

Career Choices: From Painter to Actor

Lithgow shares reflections on his career trajectory, revealing that he initially aspired to be a painter. Despite growing up in a theater family, he did not consider acting until his late teens.

“I fully intended to be a painter. I was quite committed to it. From as long as I can remember, everybody praised me for my drawings...” (07:07)

However, encouragement from his parents and his eventual pivot to acting marked a significant turning point. Lithgow discusses the influence of his father’s struggles in the theater industry, which initially led to a preference for more stable career paths. Ultimately, Lithgow's passion for acting prevailed, leading to a flourishing career that honors both his artistic instincts and his father's legacy.

“He struggled terribly. It was a very tough life for him. And I think he just felt the need to spare me that.” (08:25)

---

Reflections on Theater and Recent Projects

When prompted to daydream about a period in his life, Lithgow reminisces about his early years in New York theater during the 1970s. He describes the vibrant and relentless pace of acting on Broadway, collaborating with now-renowned actors like Mandy Patinkin and Meryl Streep.

“In any given year in the 1970s in New York, I probably was acting on stage on Broadway on about 300 of the 365 nights.” (09:27)

Lithgow expresses a profound connection to the theater, valuing the deep emotional engagement and collaborative spirit it fosters.

“The theater is where you feel like you're using absolutely everything you've got and you're in charge of the story.” (10:53)

---

Emotional Depth and the Acting Process

During the game, Lithgow grapples with understanding emotions, ultimately choosing to skip the question about which emotion he understands better than others.

“I'm in the emotion business, you know, of tracking people's emotions, you know, imitating them and summoning them up. What do I understand? I don't.” (17:13)

He candidly discusses his tendency to agree with others and his lack of defensiveness, portraying himself as a collaborative and open-minded individual.

“I tend to agree with criticism of me a little too readily... I'm not all that defensive.” (18:17)

---

Philosophical Musings on Reality and Death

In the final round of the game, Lithgow addresses profound philosophical questions. When asked if there's more to reality than we can see or touch, he maintains a simplistic view, seeing death as definitive.

“I think of death as death. I don't think there's life after death or a soul after death.” (24:25)

However, after Rachel shares her belief in experiencing a person’s presence post-death, Lithgow recounts his own confrontation with mortality. He describes the sudden passing of a close friend from a heart attack and reflects on his personal battle with cancer, which has shaped his acceptance of mortality.

“I just know it's coming. Yeah, it's coming. And I think the best thing is to have a gracious ending.” (27:39)

---

Sources of Hope and Personal Life

When asked what consistently gives him hope, Lithgow speaks tenderly about his granddaughter, highlighting the joy and optimism she brings into his life despite limited time together.

“My little granddaughter... Just watching it happen and just feeling the excitement of it and loving it so much.” (29:54)

He also touches on his fears for the future, particularly concerning climate change, illustrating the balance between hope and apprehension in his worldview.

“Hope and fear. I think you just have to be accustomed to that in your life and deal with it.” (31:23)

---

Memorable Moments: A Life in Performance

In the episode's concluding segment, Lithgow shares a poignant memory from his role as King Lear in Central Park. The emotional climax of the performance left a lasting impact on him, intertwining his real emotions with those of his character.

“It was so full of emotion. I just played frigging King Lear. So, you know, your emotions are just percolating to the point where you're bursting.” (32:22)

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Closing Thoughts: Embracing the Full Spectrum of Life

Rachel Martin wraps up the episode by celebrating Lithgow's openness and the depth of their conversation. She invites listeners to explore more episodes of Wild Card, including one featuring the charming Ted Danson and an upcoming interview with comedian Ilana Glaser.

“If you like this episode, go listen to my episode with Ted Danson... Next week on Wildcard, we talk to Ilana Glaser...” (34:50)

John Lithgow’s participation in this episode of Wild Card offers listeners an intimate glimpse into the life and mind of a seasoned actor. Through personal anecdotes, philosophical discussions, and heartfelt reflections, Lithgow conveys a profound understanding of life's complexities, emphasizing the importance of meaningful endings and the enduring hope inspired by family.

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Notable Quotes:

• “I think of death as death. I don't think there's life after death or a soul after death.” (24:25)
• “The theater is where you feel like you're using absolutely everything you've got and you're in charge of the story.” (10:53)
• “My little granddaughter... Just watching it happen and just feeling the excitement of it and loving it so much.” (29:54)
• “Hope and fear. I think you just have to be accustomed to that in your life and deal with it.” (31:23)

---

This episode serves as a testament to John Lithgow’s remarkable ability to intertwine his personal experiences with his professional journey, offering listeners a deeply engaging and reflective narrative on life, art, and the pursuit of a meaningful existence.

Transcript

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[Rachel Martin]

Do you think there's more to reality than we can see or touch?

[John Lithgow]

More to reality than we can see or touch? I am very simplistic about that. I think of death as death. I don't think there's life after death or a soul after death.

[Rachel Martin]

I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard, the game where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest chooses questions at random from a deck of cards. Questions about the memories, insights and beliefs that have shaped them.

[John Lithgow]

It's coming, and I think the best thing is to have a gracious ending.

[Rachel Martin]

My guest this week is John Lithgow.

[John Lithgow]

I calculate my exit from any film or television or stage play, and I always want to have a good ending. Well, I want to have a good ending to my life, too.

[Rachel Martin]

We're starting off with a question today. Who is your John Lithgow? We had a staff meeting recently where we all went around and named the character who made us love John Lithgow, and the choices were as varied as his career. Mine is Reverend Shaw Moore, the pastor from the movie Footloose who banned dancing in his small Texas town and in doing so gave Kevin Bacon one of the best. I'm so mad I need to do gymnastics scenes of all time, our producer said her John Lithgow is from the 1983 Twilight Zone movie. Our editor said his Lithgow has to be Dick Solomon, the patriarch of the alien family in the massively popular TV show 3rd Rock from the Sun. John Lithgow seems to have done all the things theater, movies, tv, good guys, bad guys, lots of bad guys, or just maybe complicated characters, including Winston Churchill and a very small king in Shrek. This is an actor who is willing to take a risk, play against type, elevate the profound and the ridiculous. And it must be said, the man loves to work. Just in the last few years, he's been in the Hulu series the Old Man, a play about the rider, Roald Dahl and the movie Conclave that came out earlier this year, as well as the new animated film Spellbound. John Lithgow brings everything he's got to everything he does. And yes, that means I am expecting big things from him in this moment. It's my pleasure to welcome John Lithgow to Wildcard.

[John Lithgow]

Thank you, Rachel What a wonderful introduction. I haven't decided what's my John Lithgow yet. Oh, I don't think I ever will.

[Rachel Martin]

That's okay. I don't think you have to pick just one. So this is how it's gonna go. I've got a deck of cards in front of me. Okay. I have a question on each card that I would love for you to answer, but you're gonna pick one at random. Okay. Out of three at a time. We will break it up into rounds with a few questions. In each round, you have a couple of tools at your disposal, so you have a skip. If you're just not gelling with a particular question, you can just skip it and I'll replace it with another from the deck at random.

[John Lithgow]

Okay.

[Rachel Martin]

You also have a flip so you can ask me to answer a question.

[John Lithgow]

Before you do the same one that I've picked.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[John Lithgow]

Okay.

[Rachel Martin]

So that's it.

[John Lithgow]

Great.

[Rachel Martin]

All right, here we go. Round one. First three cards. Here they are. One, two or three?

[John Lithgow]

Three.

[Rachel Martin]

Three. This one. What's an experience from childhood that made you realize your parents were only human?

[John Lithgow]

Ah, my God, what a question. The thing my mind jumps to is things that I'm not sure my parents would want me to reveal. I did when I was in fifth grade, I did walk in on them making love at like seven in the morning under a great big quilt. I didn't see anything fleshly, but it was clear what was going on.

[Rachel Martin]

Movement.

[John Lithgow]

And my 10 month old baby sister was jumping up and down in her crib right next to them. And I mean, good for them, good for them. But it was quite startling. Oh, now that I think about it, it was on a Sunday morning and it was. I lived in about eight different places as a kid. It was a peripatetic childhood because my father was in the theater game.

[Rachel Martin]

So you were moving around a lot.

[John Lithgow]

But this particular chapter was in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. And that chapter in my life, we were great churchgoers because you had to be in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

[Rachel Martin]

Right.

[John Lithgow]

And I remember being in the house and watching my father walk across the backyard in his Sunday best in a tan suit after having seen him and my mother in Dolce Legrante.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, this is after the coitus, that very moment.

[John Lithgow]

A post coital stroll across the backyard. And I remember thinking it in fifth grade. Hypocrite. Oh, God, yes. Because I thought this was sinful behavior. It was sinful. It was very puritanical. Up there in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, you know, the birthplace of American puritanism.

[Rachel Martin]

Right?

[John Lithgow]

Isn't that something?

[Rachel Martin]

That is so funny.

[John Lithgow]

I can't believe I've just told that story. That's a great story. To the public.

[Rachel Martin]

That's a great story. You know, also on the weekends, my family was very churchgoing. My dad was like the volunteer minister at our Presbyterian church. So Sundays, same, same church all the time. And before church, though, the door to their bedroom would always be locked. And I couldn't figure out for the longest time, like, I don't understand. And I'd knock, knock, I don't understand. Why can't I come in?

[John Lithgow]

So interesting how church figures into all this in both our lives, right?

[Rachel Martin]

Well, maybe it was a spiritual act for them. Perhaps then they needed that space.

[John Lithgow]

Well, it's very nice to look back on that very fondly and warmly.

[Rachel Martin]

Well, yeah, because your parents were humans.

[John Lithgow]

Because back then in fifth grade, I thought it was purely carnal and utterly sinful and completely human. That's when I discovered that they were human. That aspect of them was human.

[Rachel Martin]

So that was a good answer. John Lithgow, three more cards. One, two, three.

[John Lithgow]

Oh, boy. One on this occasion.

[Rachel Martin]

One on this occasion. What was a moment in your life when you could have chosen a different path?

[John Lithgow]

Oh, it was my entire childhood. I had chosen a different path. As I say, I grew up in a theater family but did not want to be an actor. I didn't even consider it because right up until I was about 17 years old, I fully intended to be a painter. I was quite committed to it. From as long as I can remember, everybody praised me for my drawings, literally from first grade. And, you know, if ever I were asked any version of what do you want to be when you grow up? It was always an artist. And I had great encouragement from my parents.

[Rachel Martin]

So they were not steering you in the direction of the theater or acting or anything?

[John Lithgow]

Not at all. They weren't discouraging me. Although I do remember when I told my dad that I was auditioning for a Fulbright to study acting in earnest in London, his face fell. It's like, oh, my God, no. And I said, dad, you know, you've produced all these Shakespeare festivals. You've even hired me to act. What did you expect me to want to do? And he said, well, I always thought that it would be a good idea for you to go to business school. And I said, what?

[Rachel Martin]

So it's not like he held up your artistic dreams. He was like, oh, I really thought you were going to be a painter. Yeah.

[John Lithgow]

And I said, what are you thinking? I Would never go to. He said, well, as a theater manager, as a managing director or artistic director, I've always felt that my great failing was in the area of business.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah. I mean, we all, as parents, do that to some degree, I imagine, even though I try not to. My kids are sort of young, but, you know, project your own. I've learned the hard way. You know, the theater is tough, so, you know, he struggled in the trenches and maybe he wanted something different for you.

[John Lithgow]

He struggled terribly. It was a very tough life for him. And I think he just felt the need to spare me that.

[Rachel Martin]

Right. And I bet your dad was proud of you in the end.

[John Lithgow]

Oh, ultimately, yes, of course. It's worked out just fine.

[Rachel Martin]

It worked out. It worked out okay. Last question in this round. One, two, three.

[John Lithgow]

Two, of course.

[Rachel Martin]

Two. Of course. Oh, I just love this question. What period of your life do you often daydream about?

[John Lithgow]

Daydream about? I think it's my early years in New York theater. The 1970s, I would say. In any given year in the 1970s in New York, I probably was acting on stage on Broadway on about 300 of the 365 nights. I mean, I just went from one theater job to another and worked with.

[Rachel Martin]

That sounds exhausting, though.

[John Lithgow]

Oh, it was just. I was young. I got everywhere on a bicycle. I acted. God. I did a show in 1975 at Lincoln Center, Trelawney of the Wells. And among the cast were Mary Beth Hurt and Sasha von Schoeherler. Mandy Patinkin, in his first role and in her first job out of Yale Drama School, Meryl Streep.

[Rachel Martin]

Wow.

[John Lithgow]

We were all thick as thieves. And we would have big potluck suppers together, I guess. You know, there's your answer that's worthy of daydreaming.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[John Lithgow]

Yeah.

[Rachel Martin]

Things felt limitless for you then.

[John Lithgow]

Yeah, things seemed. Even though it was really tough anyway, the town was dirty and dangerous and depressing in every way, except if you were a young actor, it was just electric.

[Rachel Martin]

So this is what you daydream about. Does that in any way mean that theater is still where you feel most at home?

[John Lithgow]

In a sense? In a sense. I mean, I like everything I do as long as it's. As long as I'm employed. But the theater is where you feel like you're using absolutely everything you've got and you're in charge of the story.

[Rachel Martin]

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[Rachel Martin]

Okay, we're going to pull back from the game for a moment to talk about what you've been working on recently, because it's a lot. You've had a busy year with the old man and the movie Conclave and most recently Spellbound.

[John Lithgow]

Oh my God.

[Rachel Martin]

Which is a very sweet film on Netflix. It is this animated story. It's actually about divorce, which I'd never seen touched on in a kids movie before. Yeah, but it made me think about another interview that I'd seen you do where you described doing animated work. You, of course we should remind people, were Lord Farquaad in Shrek. And in this interview you described it as being pretty only work. You know, it's just you in this booth and you just do these lines and.

[John Lithgow]

Well, the thing is, it's deceptive. Everybody thinks that. I've had this wonderful time working with Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz and Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem in Spellbound. You never lay eyes on them. You work in complete isolation. It's not lonely, it's just peculiar. Here you are, here you are playing this scenes with a non actor. It's usually a writer who's just feeding you your cues. You know, you show up once every six months for about an hour and a half and lay down a bunch of dialogue which is then put into the pipeline. Off it goes to the animators and they take your spoken language as holy writ. They animate to what has been edited into the soundtrack of the movie. And about four years later, you find yourself featured in this remarkable thing like Shrek.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah, it's amazing. So I know there are roles you haven't played yet, but is there for you a thing stuck in your craw that you're like, why doesn't anyone cast me for this?

[John Lithgow]

You know, I've long since realized that the most interesting things for me to do tend to be other people's ideas. They think of things for me that I would never think of for myself. And as examples, Roberta Muldoon in World According to Garp or Winston Churchill in the Crown. Who in the world would cast me for Winston Churchill or. Or Roald Dahl? I mean, telling his story is extremely dramatic and unsettling. It's the stuff of a really, really great new play.

[Rachel Martin]

But I love that you trust other people to know what is going to work for you.

[John Lithgow]

Well, actors don't have a very good sense of themselves. I mean, imagine the first time you heard yourself on a tape recording. Wasn't your response. Is that what I sound like sort of slowing? We don't. No, no. You're used to your voice by now, Rachel, but. And I'm used to my image, but a mirror lies. You don't have a real sense of who you are, what your strengths are as an actor, what your weaknesses are. I mean, if you do it long enough, of course, you build a good sense of that, of those things. But other people see you in very different ways, and they see your potential in different ways. And you can be very deluded if you go off and produce your own material, you know?

[Rachel Martin]

So we're moving on to round two.

[John Lithgow]

Great.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay. One, two or three?

[John Lithgow]

Three. Once again.

[Rachel Martin]

Three. Once again. What emotion do you understand better than all the others understand? Gosh, you have a skip and a flip just reminding you.

[John Lithgow]

I don't know. I feel like I would launch into an awful lot of bull with this one.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, I like that you are aware of that.

[John Lithgow]

I mean, basically, I'm in the emotion business, you know, of tracking people's emotions, you know, imitating them and summoning them up. What do I understand? I don't. I think I'll skip because I.

[Rachel Martin]

Let's skip it. I love when people skip. People work too hard at these. Oh, my God, yes. If it's not there.

[John Lithgow]

No, I just. The fact I just.

[Rachel Martin]

Skipping it. You don't even have to say anything more.

[John Lithgow]

Yeah, let's save the. Save time. Let's do number two instead.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, so that Is what makes you irrationally defensive.

[John Lithgow]

Now you gotta answer that. I say irrationally defensive. Well, I don't know how to answer that.

[Rachel Martin]

Have you never felt that?

[John Lithgow]

I don't know that. I've. I tend to agree with criticism of me a little too readily. You know, I said, yeah, I think you're right about that. I'm a Libra, which I don't swear by astrology, but that makes a lot of sense to me. Somebody who's like a scale, constantly balancing and indecisive. And I'm terrible in political arguments. I cannot. I cannot express my passionate politics articulately. I just fall silent because I'm listening too openly to the other point of view. I just don't have a great strong argumentative nature. I'm not all that defensive. Cause I tend to agree with what anybody says.

[Rachel Martin]

You must be a dream to work with. No wonder you're working all the time.

[John Lithgow]

I'm a real peach.

[Rachel Martin]

Joe's not gonna complain.

[John Lithgow]

I'm a peach to work with, you know, because I love other people, I love other actors, and I love creating things with them. My theory is nobody creates a performance by himself. It's always at least two people involved. Anyway, I'm ranging far.

[Rachel Martin]

That stands as an answer. Even though you didn't jive with the premise, it's still. I learned something. Something.

[John Lithgow]

Yeah.

[Rachel Martin]

That's three new cards. One, two or three.

[John Lithgow]

I feel like going back to that defensive question, but I.

[Rachel Martin]

Let's go.

[John Lithgow]

Well, there's a little episode in my life that sticks in my mind.

[Rachel Martin]

Tell me if you would.

[John Lithgow]

I was on a Broadway show league softball team, and we had this great team. And there was this inning where like, three people in a row hit home runs. And we all hugged. Yeah. Everybody's waiting on the home plate. And I got up and I also hit home run and went all around all three bases. And nobody got up. Nobody made any of us. It's like, well, that's the end of the home runs. And I went and sat down perfectly contented, okay. And they all looked at each other like, come on, what's the deal? We were trying to humiliate you, man. They had planned this joke on me, and I didn't even notice that. It was a cruel joke.

[Rachel Martin]

You were just like, oh, yeah, well.

[John Lithgow]

I've got my home run, too.

[Rachel Martin]

You don't need affirmation.

[John Lithgow]

I think it means I'm clueless. You know, you can't.

[Rachel Martin]

Humility.

[John Lithgow]

I'm on your side. What can I tell you?

[Rachel Martin]

It's like that's a great superpower, John.

[John Lithgow]

I don't know.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, three more. One, two, three.

[John Lithgow]

Let's do two again.

[Rachel Martin]

Two. What feels unreachable to you?

[John Lithgow]

What feels unreachable, though? There are some things that I am so bad at. Technology, for one thing. Mathematics. Are you Money? I just can't get it together. And yet it terrifies me, you know? Oh my God. I don't think about money at all until I do. And when I do, it's like, oh my God, have I run out of money? I don't even know. It's, you know.

[Rachel Martin]

Hopefully you have a person you can call.

[John Lithgow]

Well, I have a wife who's an economic historian who thinks about money a lot. But I'm telling you, the shoemaker's children go barefoot. Neither of us knows what's going on. Well, but I hope I'm. I hope and assume I'm okay.

[Rachel Martin]

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[Rachel Martin]

Okay, we're into round three. This is the final round. Three more cards. One, two or three?

[John Lithgow]

Three.

[Rachel Martin]

Do you think there's more to reality than we can see or touch?

[John Lithgow]

Oh God, these questions. They're deep, philosophical questions.

[Rachel Martin]

I feel like when you say that it, it's causing you great pain.

[John Lithgow]

I've just never been asked These questions before, it's kind of amazing. More to reality than we can see or touch. I have a pretty simple version of reality. You're immediately making me look around me like what's real and what isn't? And everything I see is real. So that's the best I can do on that one, really. Okay. All right. Wait a minute. I am allowed to ask you that same question. So, Rachel, I want to hear your answer to this because I have no idea how to answer it.

[Rachel Martin]

So I think this is a question about death. I think it's a question about what happens to us when we die. That's what I think of when I think of this question.

[John Lithgow]

Wow.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah. I guess this is where I get woo woo. Because I just feel, especially after a person dies who you're close to, I think there is a time, the time right after that happens or for the first couple of months, when you feel that person. At least that has been the case for me. And it's just undeniable. Things happen, synchronicities, coincidence, whatever. But there's an actual energy that I have felt. And so that has made me open to the idea that there are things I don't understand and that there could be more to reality. Then I can see your touch.

[John Lithgow]

It's so interesting. My mind didn't go to that great demarcation between being alive and being dead. Being alive and sensing reality everywhere and being dead and no longer existing. But I am very simplistic about that. I think of death as death. I don't think there's life after death or a soul after death. I had an extraordinary death experience two years ago. I directed that wonderful New Yorker, Doug McGrath, in his one man show that he'd written for himself. He had a wonderful little off Broadway success with it and was in his third week of a run. He was gonna do it as long as he wanted in a tiny theater downtown. And he didn't show up at the theater one night because in his office by himself at about 4 in the afternoon, he'd lain down, had a heart attack and died at age 64. It was such a traumatic thing to experience. He died painlessly and almost courteously. He didn't make anybody else suffer over his death, except over the fact that it had happened like that.

[Rachel Martin]

Mm. Did that change anything for you and how you think of it? The endness of it all?

[John Lithgow]

I was startled at how soon I was able to absorb it as just having happened. And the new reality. This lovely man, who was quite a dear friend Having worked together so closely, he was simply gone. And I knew that he was gone. And the brain simply adjusts.

[Rachel Martin]

But I guess I'm going to ask another follow up question. Did it make you any more or less comfortable with your own demise?

[John Lithgow]

More. More comfortable. I just know it's coming. Yeah, it's coming. And I think the best thing is to have a gracious ending. You know, I calculate my exit from any film or television or stage play and I always want to have a good ending. Well, I want to have a good ending to my life too, that no one grieves over and is appropriate. Well, people will grieve, so. I can't believe I'm talking about these things. I've had three cancers in my life. First in 1988, 2004, and then only a couple of years ago. In every case dealt with immediately and put an end to melanomas could be removed, detected early and removed. A prostatectomy that eliminated prostate cancer from my life. But I'm almost glad that I had the shocking experience of being told, you have a malignancy to have realistically contemplated. Oh my God, this might really. I might die of this. I think it was a useful experience to have in terms of just putting your whole life into perspective.

[Rachel Martin]

Three new cards.

[John Lithgow]

All right. Okay.

[Rachel Martin]

One. Two or three?

[John Lithgow]

Two, please.

[Rachel Martin]

What is something that consistently gives you hope?

[John Lithgow]

Ah, well, my little granddaughter.

[Rachel Martin]

You have a granddaughter?

[John Lithgow]

I have a four year old granddaughter. I also have a 16 year old grandson and a 19 year old granddaughter. They're well on their way. A four year old really gives you hope?

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah, I mean it's easy for people to say, oh, the child in my life gives me hope. But why? What is it about this person that gives you hope?

[John Lithgow]

I guess it's. I only see her on average about once every four months. And in those four months I see such extraordinary growth when I come back, she's this extraordinary progress. Her mind developing, her coordination.

[Rachel Martin]

And what about that as hopeful.

[John Lithgow]

Just watching it happen and just feeling the excitement of it and loving it so much. Can't wait to see her again, you know, to see what's happened now beyond seeing her on FaceTime, which is delightful enough as it is, that's the best answer I have for that.

[Rachel Martin]

It's just, it's a good one because children growing, it will just keep happening no matter what's happening in the world. And the chatter and the despair, focusing on a child doing what she's supposed to do, growing every time you see her and changing, that's an Inevitability. That's a beautiful thing to watch unspool.

[John Lithgow]

Yeah. I mean, the opposite side of that, you swing back and forth between optimism and pessimism, is fearing for the future, fearing for climate change. What's it going to be like if the worst predictions are true 50 years from now, when she's 54 years old? So, you know, they go hand in hand. Hope and fear. I think you just have to be accustomed to that in your life and deal with it.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah, I agree. We end the show the same way every time, and this is how we do it. We're going to take a trip in our memory time machine. Okay.

[John Lithgow]

Yeah.

[Rachel Martin]

You pick one moment in your past to relive. You would not change one thing about this moment. You just want to linger in it a little longer. What moment do you choose?

[John Lithgow]

Well, I will tell you that the most important person in my life is my wife. And I feel very lucky that that's the case. And I feel. And she's a feisty woman. She will count on me saying something that involves her. But I'm going to describe something that does not. It's a bait and switch. Yeah, a total bait and switch. I acted the role of King Lear on stage in Central Park. It was a good production. I was a good King Lear. I think at the very end of the last performance, there was a big square platform, which was the central stage of this piece. And when I made my first entrance as the king, people beat on the platform in rhythmic. It was very kind of dark ages. And when I came out for my curtain call with everybody else, we all. We all bowed, and at a certain point, they all disappeared, and they jumped off this stage and came around and they all beat on that stage with just me all by myself while the audience were standing and applauding. Now, this is. It makes me sound like a real whore for applause, but I was so full of emotion. I mean, I just played frigging King Lear. So, you know, your emotions are just percolating to the point where you're bursting. The death of Cordelia and the death of King Lear and then coming out for that curtain call and having those wonderful actors paying that tribute, it was just. It was just overwhelming. It was so such a combination of King Lear's grief and John Lithgow's joy, you know, just astonishing.

[Rachel Martin]

You can see John Lithgow now in Spellbound on Netflix and in the movie conclave, John Lithgow. Thank you. Thank you.

[John Lithgow]

Oh, Rachel, this is great. Friends for life. Friends for life.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, my gosh, it was really truly so fun. If you like this episode, go listen to my episode with Ted Danson, who is also a gem of a human being and someone who doesn't take any of the beauty and goodness in his life for granted. I think you will be inspired, maybe even moved, by hearing him talk about his relationship with his wife, Mary Steenburgen. Next week on Wildcard, we talk to Ilana Glaser, who's got a new Netflix special coming out on December 20th. What's a place you consider sacred? The bath. Love it. Love the bath. My husband and I have like solved many problems, or so we thought in the bath. This episode was produced by Romel Wood and edited by Dave Blanchard. It was mastered by Robert Rodriguez, Wild Card's executive producer is Beth Donovan and our theme music is by Rom Teen Arablouei. You can reach out to [e-mail] we're going to shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then.

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