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John Arthur Lithgow is an actor, musician, poet, author, and musician. He has received two Tony Awards, six Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, four Drama Desk Awards, and has been nominated for two Academy Awards and four Grammy Awards.
Lithgow is a lifelong friend of the LGBTQ community, outspoken in his support. As an actor, he has played several queer characters on stage and screen, including his groundbreaking turn as trans woman Roberta Muldoon alongside Robin Williams in The World According To Garp (1982), which brought Lithgow an Academy Award nomination; French diplomat Bernard Boursicot in love the a Peking opera singer who is not a she in M. Butterfly on Broadway in 1988; and the voice of Gore Vidal in the documentary Best Of Enemies (2015); but his best gay role was in Love Is Strange (2015) directed and written by Ira Sachs. Love Is Strange is an understated and quiet film, with Alfred Molina and Lithgow as a couple of nearly 40 years. It’s about many things: growing old, NYC real estate, family, work, friendships… but what it is really about is love. Love is not strange. It is what we do, if we are lucky.
With Alfred Molina in “Love Is Strange”, Sony Picture Classics via YouTube
Lithgow:
“I think LGBTQ people are underrepresented in film, and to the extent that they are represented – I mean, there have been important and fine films on gay themes. Many! Longtime Companion, Milk, Philadelphia and Prick Up Your Ears. But so many of them have been shot through with torment and crisis. Milk is about an assassination, Philadelphia is about death by AIDS, Prick Up Your Ears is about a crime of passion between two gay men. This one is exactly the opposite. It is so prosaic. What’s extraordinary and revolutionary about the film is how ordinary it is. It goes beyond acceptance of a gay lifestyle right on to taking it for granted.
You know, there are different gradations – there is prejudice, and then there’s tolerance, and then there’s acceptance, but the best of all is simply taking something for granted as if there’s nothing unusual about it. That’s what’s revolutionary about this film. That’s exactly how this relationship is viewed, and I think it’s a sign of the times that this is actually happening. I’m not saying the battle is won by any means, but it’s getting harder and harder to be bigoted, and that’s extremely good news.”
Love Is Strange is streaming on Netflix.
