{"id":79285,"date":"2025-08-20T04:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T04:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/79285\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T04:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T04:12:09","slug":"the-career-starting-movie-john-lithgow-was-rejected-for-at-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/79285\/","title":{"rendered":"The career-starting movie John Lithgow was rejected for at first"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n

Tue 19 August 2025 22:30, UK <\/p>\n

To say John Lithgow<\/a>\u2018s career started on screen is to not only discredit his work as a professional treading the boards of theatres across the country in the 1970s, but his heritage, too.<\/p>\n

The star was born to be an actor. The son of a father who was a theatre producer and a mother who was an actor, it seemed like Lithgow\u2019s journey had already begun before conception.<\/p>\n

Credits began rolling in during the decade for Lithgow, who would not only be prevalent in theatre, performing titles like Comedians and Hamlet, but also found his way onto television. Add to this a few film appearances, and as the 1980s approached, it seemed like the imposing figure of John Lithgow would be one we\u2019d be getting used to for a long time to come.<\/p>\n

In 1979, Lithgow grabbed a role in All That Jazz, marrying his love of the stage with his desire to be under the studio lights. But that small part would snowball into a more handsome role in Blow Out two years later as Lithgow took on the murderous role of Burke alongside John Travolta. But it would be the following years as a less conventional character that Lithgow would arguably begin his career in earnest.<\/a><\/p>\n

The World According to Garp isn\u2019t the most well-known effort of Lithgow or co-star Robin Williams\u2019 careers, but it is one of their most important. A comedy drama drenched in the ideas of feminism, sexism and the brutality of sexual assault, the movie somehow manages to address such issues with a degree of levity that feels almost unnatural. Much of that is down to Lithgow\u2019s delicately poised portrayal of transgender former NFL player Robert Muldoon, the best friend to Williams\u2019 Garp.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a>John Lithgow (Credit: David Shankbone)<\/p>\n

The novel was the first introduction Lithgow had to his defining character, as he told GQ: \u201cI had read the novel, like everybody else. It never occurred to me this would be a movie.\u201d A lot of that trepidation is the very troubling scenes surrounding sexual assault, which are only really mentioned in the movie but are graphically depicted in the novel. \u201cIt struck me as a book you couldn\u2019t possibly make a movie out of, particularly because of one absolutely key scene. I thought you just can\u2019t do this in a movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, director George Roy Hill <\/a>felt the story needed to be told and the \u201cradical\u201d decision to pitch Lithgow as Roberta was another move that nearly didn\u2019t happen. \u201cIt was a very radical choice to make the essential friend of the hero a \u2018transsexual\u2019 as they were referred to then. Interestingly enough, when I first met with George Hill, to read for him, he ruled me out immediately for being too tall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018It just won\u2019t work, it will be pushing it too much.’\u201d Considering the time and the tolerances in society, Hill might have been correct. Thankfully, though, he came to his senses, as Lithgow continued: \u201cEight months passed, I was in despair because I thought I was the only one to play this part. I went back and I screen tested for it, with three other actors \u2014 among them Jeff Daniels \u2014 just by chance I had read this book called Conundrum, the memoir of Jan Morris, a travel writer who had undergone trans surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book had given the actor, if not a solid perspective, then a slew of anecdotes that put him over the edge. \u201cI spout the things that I remembered from reading this book two years before. And he was like \u2018My God! You New York actors, you do so much research.\u2019 Not at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, for Lithgow, the part could have had even more sensitivity. John Irving was first asked to write the screenplay for the movie and had a different idea for Roberta. \u201cIt was the early 1980s when George Roy Hill asked me if I would write the screenplay for Garp, but I knew we didn\u2019t see eye to eye about Roberta. George was a World War II guy; he couldn\u2019t see past the comedic part of a transgender woman who\u2019d been an NFL player,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cA pity, because John Lithgow, who was cast as Roberta in the film, could have played her as I wrote her,\u201d admitted Irving. \u201cRoberta is a force of normality in an otherwise extreme world; she is the only character who loves Garp and his mother equally, the only character who isn\u2019t in a rage about someone or something. I declined to write the Garp script because George wouldn\u2019t do Roberta my way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Lithgow managed to deliver almost from day one. \u201cI remember the first scene I shot, was a scene in which I as Roberta was tied to a tree and Garp and his kids were clowning around with me. I was playing the damsel in distress,\u201d the actor reminisced. But as they rehearsed, Lithgow was worried he had overstepped the mark, and asked Hill for feedback. \u201cMy heart sank into my stomach,\u201d he confessed when Hill agreed to offer him some constructive criticism, \u201cHe roared with laughter\u2026 it was fine. That was the last direction he ever gave me.\u201d<\/p>\n

A movie so poignantly decorated with serious issues, approached with a humanity that very few actors and directors have got right since, Lithgow agrees, \u201cThis is a movie for right now.\u201d From this movie onward, Lithgow\u2019s career was set.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still) Tue 19 August 2025 22:30, UK To say John Lithgow\u2018s career started…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,40400,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-79285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-john-lithgow","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}