It might be known as winter elsewhere, but in Hollywood, they call it “awards season” … and just about everyone’s in town for tonight’s grand finale. One of the stars of “Conclave,” John Lithgow, is looking forward to it. “Yes, I haven’t been to the Oscars in years.”
Lithgow says he really likes playing the bad guy.
“Everything you do seems like it’s a lot of fun for you,” I said.
“Well, I try to find things that are fun,” Lithgow said. “I don’t go looking for them. They come to me. By now, I’m on a short list of actors, who is well known for being ready, willing, and able to do just about anything. So, wild roles come my way. Nothing normal!”
Also in town: esteemed actor Geoffrey Rush. He might live Down Under, but he’s picked up a few awards up here, including a Tony, an Oscar, and an Emmy, or as he puts it, “a TOE.”
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We got both Rush and Lithgow in the same room to talk about something they’ve done together. In “The Rule of Jenny Pen,” Rush plays a wheelchair-bound stroke patient recovering in a nursing home, and Lithgow is the merciless bully who terrorizes his fellow residents, often with a sinister doll puppet, named Jenny Pen.
To watch a trailer for “The Rule of Jenny Pen,” click on the video player below:
If it looks like a low-budget horror film, that’s because it is!
“Lot of times, this is how people get their start in the business – they do a low-budget horror movie,” I said.
“This is where we ended up!” said Rush.
“Geoffrey’s just one of the great actors,” said Lithgow. “And you just read the script and said, ‘This is a hell of a double act.'”
“I thought I was reading for the doll!” said Rush.
Lithgow’s character starts out as merely sinister, and quickly graduates to terrifying. It’s the classic horror film villain, and for Lithgow, a role with teeth.
Rush said, “Typical John, he said, ‘I’ve had some teeth made.’ And I thought, ‘You’re my kind of actor,’ because really, the first time I saw the face, I just went, ‘This guy is creepy.'”
“Look, we’re in the impact business,” Lithgow said. “You’re after making people laugh, cry, or scream out in terror. And this was scream-out-in-terror time, with deep feeling sort of invested in it.”
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Lithgow’s been evoking deep feelings for more than half a century. But before he was the acclaimed movie star. He was the acclaimed stage actor, the guy in David Storey’s play “The Changing Room” who made winning a Tony look easy, picking up the award just two weeks after making his first appearance on a Broadway stage. “I think I must have the record for the quickest win sprint from Broadway debut to a Tony Award,” he said.
Rush has a similar story: He also won a Tony for his Broadway debut, 2009’s “Exit the King.” And the movie “Shine,” about real-life pianist David Helfgott, was only his second feature film. He still can’t believe he took home the Oscar for best actor. “It still doesn’t make sense,” he said.
But it was hardly beginner’s luck. Both Rush and Lithgow have had once-in-a-lifetime roles …. again and again.
I asked, “Has there ever been a role that the guy sitting next to you had that you looked at and said either, ‘Wow. That was perfect,’ or, ‘Ooh, I wish I could have played that’?”
Lithgow said, “I don’t know. I defer to an actor who does a much better job than I could possibly do in that role. I was the second choice for Hannibal Lecter. If Tony Hopkins had turned it down, it was coming to me. And there’s no way I could have played that part as well as he did.”
“Wow, that’s a bold statement,” said Rush.
“It’s true! And I feel that way about Geoffrey in ‘Shine.’ That was his role. It belonged to him. And there’s no point being …”
“What John doesn’t know is that I got offered most of the roles that he’s got first!” Rush laughed.
Truth is, just about any role they play is iconic. And with director James Ashcroft’s “Jenny Pen,” they get to do something extra-special: act their age.
Rush recalled, “I said to James Ashcroft, ‘How old is this judge in the film?’ He said, ‘How old are you now?’ I said, ‘I’m 73.’ He said, ‘Let’s make him 73.’ And that’s the first time I’ve played my own age.”
Lithgow said, “Geoffrey and I have the great advantage of having grown to a certain age where we are each other’s only competition. You get the great old man roles dealing with big issues like mortality and facing the loss of your own viability and the loss of your own cognition. It’s been a blessing. I mean, my career has sort of aged along with me. And who would have believed I would still be going strong at this point?”
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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Steven Tyler.
