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Look At The Darkest Hit Musicals - Cabaret, West Side Story, Carousel - They Are Exuberant Experiences. They Send You Out Of The Theater Filled With Music

-John Lithgow

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Look At The Darkest

John Lithgow

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Look At The Darkest Hit Musicals - Cabaret, West Side Story, Carousel - They Are Exuberant Experiences. They Send You Out Of The Theater Filled With Music

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Time Sneaks Up On You Like A Windshield On A Bug.

You Have To Overcome Enormous Self-consciousness, But Nudity Is About The Strongest Thing You Can Do In An Acting Performance. It's The Most Unsettling Or The Most Comic Or The Most Sexual.

I Grew Up In A Theater Family. My Father Was A Regional Theater Classical Repertory Producer. He Created Shakespeare Festivals. He Produced All Of Shakespeare's Plays, Mostly In Shakespeare Festivals In Ohio. One Of Them, The Great Lakes Theater Festival In Cleveland, Is Still Going. So I Grew Up Not Wanting To Be An Actor, Not Wanting To Go Into The Family Business.

I Have A Lot Of Faith In People.

I Can't Get Used To The Fact That I'm 68 Years Old. I Still Feel Like A Youngster. I Am Playing A Part Even Older Than 68 - 71 Years Old. It's Kind Of Startling To See Myself In A Movie And Realize, "yup. That's Exactly What I Look Like."

If You Read In Front Of Your Kids, It's Very Likely That They'll Become Readers, Too

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If We Are Ever Going To Save This Society And The World, There Has Got To Be A Way For Us To Work Together. That May Be More Than We Can Ever Hope To Achieve, Just Because Of Human Nature.

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One Of The Things That Gives Me A Lot Of Pleasure About Both The Solo Show And The Book Is That It Tells People About My Dad. He Really Was An Important Man. He Was A Kind Of Pioneer Of Regional Theater. He Was The First American Producer To Ever Produce All Of Shakespeare Plays.

It's A Very Tough Time For The Playwright. Broadway Has Become Almost A Musical Comedy Theme Park With All These Long-running Shows.

I Went To Princeton High School, When I Was Very Serious About Being An Artist. I Was In A Theatre Family But I Didn't Want To Become An Actor.

The Most Exciting Acting Tends To Happen In Roles You Never Thought You Could Play.

Books Make Great Gifts Because They're Something You Love That You Can Share.

Something You Love

I'd Sleep Under A Vermeer.

When You End A Successful Sitcom, The Most Sensible Thing To Do Is Go Back To The Theater.

What You Aspire To On A Sitcom Is The Feeling Of Live Comedy.

I'm Always Being Asked To Play Roles Or Characters That I Don't Really Resemble.

It's Very Interesting, I Had An Extremely Intense Experience With My Dad In 2002, When He Was An Old Man And Very Ill And I Was Taking Care Of Him And My Mother, And He Was Extremely Depressed, Virtually Lost The Will To Live, And I Realized My Main Job Was Cheering Him Up To Save His Life.

I Was Married Very Young. I Lived A Very Middle Class Life. I Was Married At Age 21, Divorced At 31. I Didn't Sleep On People's Couches.

My Only Regret Is That We Didn't Have More Kids. I Came From A Family Of Four Kids, But My Wife And I Just Started Too Late.

Academics Tend To Have Wonderfully Infantile Senses Of Humor.

Any Character You Play, You're On His Side. You Do Have The Third Eye That Looks At What An Appalling Creature He Is, But You Have To Look At What's Good About Him.

I Certainly Had My Years As An Out Of Work Actor But I Was Married With A Baby. My Wife Was Supporting Us.

I'm Very Concerned For The Future Of The Earth And Its Amazing Creatures. We've Got To Be Careful And Make Sure We Don't Foul Our Own Nest

That's How You Deal With Stardom; You Make It The Least Important Part Of Your Life.

There's Nothing Like Spending An Evening With An Audience Every Night.

I Need A Good Book I Need A Good Story. I Need A Good Book. The Kind That Explodes Off The Shelf. I Need Some Good Writing, Alive And Exciting, To Contemplate All By Myself. I Need A Good Novel, I Need A Good Read. I Probably Need Two Or Three. I Need A Good Tale Of Love And Betrayal Or Perhaps An Adventure At Sea. I Need A Good Saga. I Need A Good Yarn. A Momentous And Mightily Or Slight One. But With Thousands And Thousands And Thousands Of Books, I Need Someone To Tell Me The Right One. -john Lithgow

I Was In 20 Shakespearean Plays By The Time I Was 20.

The Broadway Audience Is Made Up Of A Greater Percentage Of Tourists Now. There's Not Nearly As Much Variety And Danger And Challenge In What's Being Offered.

In Animation, There's This Exhilarating Moment Of Discovery When You See The Film And You Say, Oh That's What I Was Doing.

My Father Was A Man Of The Theater. I Grew Up In A Theater Family. As A Young Man, As A Boy, I Gypsied Around With My Siblings And My Parents To, Like, Eight Different Towns, Went To Eight Different Schools. All Those Things Were Extremely Formative, And I Think That's What Happens.

Take Care, Be Kind, Be Considerate Of Other People And Other Species, And Be Loving.

I'm A Con Artist In That I'm An Actor. I Make People Believe Something Is Real When They Know Perfectly Well It Isn't.

I Always Tell That To Young People - Go To College, Do Theater, Work With An Audience. Don't Try To Learn How To Act In Front Of Millions And Millions Of People. Don't Make That Your First Ambition, To Be On A Sitcom Or Get Into The Movies. Learn Who You Are As An Actor, And The Best Way To Do That Is To Do It In Front Of An Audience.

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I Consider Myself A Very Lucky Actor That, Approaching 60, I'm Still Employed And Employable.

I Learned The Most About Myself, And You Ask What I Learned? Well, I Learned My Strengths And My Weaknesses, And It's Far More Important To Learn About Your Weaknesses Than Your Strengths.

You Kill Three People, They Call You A Murderer. You Kill A Million People, They Call You A Conqueror. Go Figure.

We Should Have Charity For What The Dead Say. We May Disapprove Of What They Say, But We Should Not Insult Them And Revile Them Knowing They Cannot Not Defend Themselves.

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I Got A Wonderful College Education. I Went To Harvard. In Those Four Years I Accumulated A Lot Of Knowledge But I Also Created A Kind Of Habit Of Learning That Has Stayed With Me My Whole Life.

I Find I Have To Walk A Little Faster In Public These Days, But It's Very Easy To Remember When Nobody Had Any Idea Who I Was.

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I Was Very Interested In Being A Painter. I Had Facility, I Had Talent, And I Loved Painting And Printmaking, And I Was Quite Serious About It.

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Look At The Darkest Hit Musicals - Cabaret, West Side Story, Carousel - They Are Exuberant Experiences. They Send You Out Of The Theater Filled With Music

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I Can't Imagine Doing An Hour-long Dramatic Series Because It's So Much Work. A Sitcom Is A Wonderful Gig. You Work From 10 To 4 Every Day, It's Fun, And You Get To Live At Home.

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Growing Up I Didn't Want To Be An Actor. I Sort Of Didn't Want To Go Into The Family Business; The Main Reason Being There Was Something I Wanted To Do Far More, Which Was Be An Artist.

Up There With My Awards, I Have A Great Big Statue Of Groucho Marx, Just To Put Everything In Perspective.

I Subscribe To The Great George G. Scott Quote, "all Actors Are In Trouble. Directors Who Don't Help Are A Pain In The Ass". We All Need Help From Directors. We Are All Equally Insecure.

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Having Grown Up In The Theater Family, Having Done A Huge Amount Of Acting From A Very Little Boy To Precocious Teenager In Shakespeare Festivals That My Father Produced, I Went Off To College And Fell In With The Theater Gang. I Was Already An Experienced Actor. I Became A Kind Of Campus Star. I Heard All This Applause And Laughter.

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