John Lithgow
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).
210 acting credits
Acting · 210
The Simpsons
1989
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1962
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
2014
The Daily Show
1996
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
2009
Late Night with Seth Meyers
2014
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
2015
Dexter
2006
The Kelly Clarkson Show
2019
The Graham Norton Show
2007
How I Met Your Mother
2005
Saturday Night Live
1975
Interstellar
2014
Conan
2010
Frasier
1993
The Colbert Report
2005
NOVA
1974
Golden Globe Awards
1944
The Crown
2016
The Late Late Show with James Corden
2015
30 Rock
2006
The View
1997
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
2003
The One Show
2006
Great Performances
1971
Sherri
2022
3rd Rock from the Sun
1996
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
2014
Tony Awards
1956
Shrek
2001
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
1993
Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter
2015
Tales from the Crypt
1989
Stars in the House
2020
Amazing Stories
1985
Finding Your Roots
2012
The Oscars
1953
The Tony Danza Show
2004
Dexter: New Blood
2021
Faerie Tale Theatre
1982
Perry Mason
2020
The Old Man
2022
Dexter: Resurrection
2025
Firing Line with Margaret Hoover
2018
Killers of the Flower Moon
2023
The Accountant
2016
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
2011
Cosby
1996
Conclave
2024
Live from E!
2002
The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer
2018
Today
1952
Trial & Error
2017
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
2013
Harry Potter
2026
James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction
2018
Spellbound
2024
The Rosie O'Donnell Show
1996
Cliffhanger
1993
SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night
2025
Pitch Perfect 3
2017
Pet Sematary
2019
Daddy's Home 2
2017
Leap Year
2010
Confessions of a Shopaholic
2009
Prohibition
2011
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
1984
Sharper
2023
The West
1996
The Pelican Brief
1993
Hallmark Hall of Fame
1951
Bombshell
2019
Obsession
1976
Footloose
1984
This Is 40
2012
The Rule of Jenny Pen
2025
Miss Sloane
2016
Twenty Good Years
2006
2010
1984
Dreamgirls
2006
Harry and the Hendersons
1987
The Roosevelts: An Intimate History
2014
Twilight Zone: The Movie
1983
The Campaign
2012
New Year's Eve
2011
VH1 Goes Inside
2003
Blow Out
1981
The Early Show
1999
The Bubble
2022
Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic
2026
Ricochet
1991
Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
2000
Terms of Endearment
1983
Jimpa
2026
The Day After
1983
American Cinema
1994
Memphis Belle
1990
Liv Ullmann: A Road Less Travelled
2023
Cabrini
2024
The Homesman
2014
The Apprentice: Martha Stewart
2005
DreamWorks 6 Spooky Stories Collection
2003
World War II: When Lions Roared
1994
Kinsey
2004
Shrek 3-D
2004
Orange County
2002
Giant
2026
The World According to Garp
1982
A Civil Action
1998
All That Jazz
1979
Raising Cain
1992
Late Night
2019
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: The Facts of Life and Diff'rent Strokes
2021
The Tuskegee Airmen
1995
The Manhattan Project
1986
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
2004
Tales from the Crypt: The Robert Zemeckis Collection
1999
Beatriz at Dinner
2017
Santa Claus: The Movie
1985
The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
2006
Masters of Illusion: The Wizards of Special Effects
1994
Inside 'Interstellar'
2015
Homegrown
1998
At Play in the Fields of the Lord
1991
Night of 100 Stars III
1990
Silent Fall
1994
On Broadway
2019
Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic
2023
Hollow Point
1996
Love Is Strange
2014
Broadway: The Next Generation
—
ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway
2007
Johnny Skidmarks
1998
Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party
2001
Resting Place
1986
My Brother's Keeper
1995
Princess Caraboo
1994
Show of Titles
2021
Casting By
2012
Rich Kids
1979
Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues
1972
Shakespeare Live! From the RSC
2016
Mesmerized
1985
The Jungle Bunch 2: The Great Treasure Quest
2014
Best of Enemies
2015
Out Cold
1989
Love, Cheat & Steal
1993
The Big Fix
1978
I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can
1982
Baby Girl Scott
1987
Don Quixote
2000
The Boys
1991
2010 : The Odyssey Continues
1984
The Wrong Man
1993
A Good Man in Africa
1994
Einstein's Big Idea
2005
Pet Sematary: The Tale of Timmy Baterman
2018
Secret Service
1977
Mister Rogers: It's You I Like
2018
The Pulitzer At 100
2017
Buckaroo Banzai Declassified
2002
Distant Thunder
1988
The Tomorrow Man
2019
Not in Front of the Children
1982
Timms Valley
2013
Shrek Stories
2013
Ivory Hunters
1990
Shrek: Once Upon a Time
2011
Santa Claus: The Making of the Movie
1985
Emily @ the Edge of Chaos
2021
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
1984
The Glitter Dome
1984
The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts
2019
Amazing Stories: The Movie II
1990
Myths and Hymns
2021
Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did For Love
2013
Redwood Curtain
1995
Finding Harry: The Craft Behind The Magic
2026
Traveling Man
1989
The Macabre World of Lavender Williams
2009
The Country Girl
1974
The Country Mouse & the City Mouse: A Christmas Tale
1993
Mom, the Wolfman and Me
1980
9 Kisses
2014
GIANT - The Play
2026
Big Blonde
1980
The Oldest Living Graduate
1980
Give My Regards to Broadway
2020
Ode to Joy: Beethoven's Symphony No. 9
2016
National Theatre Live: The Magistrate
2013
Art Happens Here with John Lithgow
2024
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
1993
Bark, George
2003
Sangre
2006
The Amazing Bone
1987
Car of the Future
2008
Special Effects: Anything Can Happen
1996
Sequestered - Inside Conclave
—
The Great Robot Race: The DARPA Grand Challenge
2006
Miracle in a Box: A Piano Reborn
2009
Dogs and More Dogs
2004
Stallone on the Edge: The Making of Cliffhanger
—
John Lithgow's Kid-Sized Concert
1990
Projections of America
2015
They All Saw a Cat
2017
95 Worlds and Counting
2000
Officer Buckle and Gloria
1997
Lord John
2015
Hickory Dickory Doc
2017
Chez Bob
2022