P
laying a historical
figure is an actorly rite
of passage, but lately
John Lithgow seems to
want to play them all.
In just the last year,
the former “3rd Rock
From the Sun” patri-
arch appeared as both
Bill Clinton (in the Broadway drama “Hilla-
ry and Clinton”) and Donald Trump (in a
live reading of the Mueller Report at Man-
hattan’s Riverside Church), as well as Win-
ston Churchill on “The Crown,” and, come
December, disgraced longtime Fox News
chief Roger Ailes in Jay Roach’s new docu-
drama “Bombshell.” If you thought you saw
Rudy Giuliani on “Colbert” last month, sur-
prise! That was Lithgow too.
“It’s been a wonderful series of fascinat-
ing challenges,” Lithgow says, in a confer-
ence room at his publicist’s office in Beverly
Hills. “What they all have in common is that
they make me feel very engaged. It’s great to
do an entertainment that feels on point,
somehow connected with what’s going on
now.”
“Bombshell,” which follows three wom-
en who take on the toxic male culture at
America’s most popular cable network, de-
picts the fallout of a #MeToo scandal in a
workplace where “feminist” is still a dirty
word.
In playing Ailes — who died in 2017, just a
year after his ouster from Fox News — Lith-
gow the outspoken liberal brings depth to a
character not only accused of multiple cases
of sexual harassment, but directly responsi-
ble for the polarized news landscape that
helped bring Trump to power.
Lithgow says he can’t stand to watch Fox
and “tried to prescribe it like castor oil”
while preparing for the role. Still, he rel-
ished the challenge. “Look, I’m in the busi-
ness of empathy,” Lithgow says. “You try to
get inside that person and answer the ques-
tion, why does this person feel this way?
Why is this person so driven to do this
thing? Is this person remorseful that he has
done this thing? All those questions are fas-
cinating.
“One of my great assets in playing the
part was Connie Britton playing my wife,”
Lithgow adds, “because there was someone
who was devoted to him and refused to be-
lieve the charges against him until they were
irrefutable, at which point it was a terrible
crisis for her. That just shows you he was
capable of being loved, and in playing anyvillain, that’s a very important color to have
on your palette.”
Ailes is hardly the central character of
“Bombshell.” (Showtime’s “The Loudest
Voice” miniseries from earlier this year,
with Russell Crowe playing Ailes, captures
the wider sweep of his career.) Charlize
Theron stars as superstar anchor Megyn
Kelly, Nicole Kidman plays ratings-starved
host Gretchen Carlson, and Margot Robbie
plays a fictional composite character just
beginning her ascent as an on-screen talent
at the network.
Theron and Kidman could draw upon
thousands of hours of footage in preparing
to play Kelly and Carlson, but Lithgow says
it was difficult to find video of Ailes. “He
didn’t go public a lot. He would never be a
talking head on Sunday morning. He didn’t
want people to see him. I finally found one
three-second clip of him walking from a
building to a car, and that’s how I knew how
to walk. He wanted people to see Fox, but he
didn’t want them to see him.”
Unlike with the roles of Churchill and
Clinton, playing Ailes required “extreme
impersonation” and required a total phys-
ical transformation. “I went to work with
Kazuhiro Tsuji, this brilliant makeup artist,
and I was quite wary and skeptical. I didn’t
want my face covered. I thought, ‘My God,
that’s what I act with.’ I said, ‘Please just give
me my eyes and my mouth.’ And I got to
wear my own hair. But beyond that, we tried
as far as possible to turn this face into Roger
Ailes’ face.”
Replicating Ailes’ jowls and corpulent
figure involved six pieces of prostheses. “I
was persuaded,” Lithgow says. “The close-
ups in the film are incredible. That’s not my
flesh, but I felt very comfortable in it.”
Recently, Lithgow has taken a more sa-
tirical approach to Republican leadership,
having just published a poetic diatribe
called “Dumpty.”
At a 2017 gala for the Public Theatre in
New York, Lithgow sang the “Major-Gen-
eral’s Song” from “The Pirates of Penzance”
but altered the lyrics to include Michael
Flynn and several figures from the Trump-
Russia story. “And it was a huge success with
the audience. They roared with laughter at
the rhymes.” His agent encouraged him to
“mess around with poems,” and “Dumpty” is
the result.
“So many of these stories just enrage me
and appall me,” Lithgow says. “But the best
way for me to deal with it is to turn them
into an entertainment.” 8Carolyn ColeLos Angeles TimesTHE CONTENDERS
Taking delight
in a downfall
at Fox News
John Lithgowwants to entertain, especially when the
topic is relevant, as with playing network chief Roger Ailes
facing #MeToo accusations in ‘Bombshell.’
BY AKIVA GOTTLIEB
S8
THE ENVELOPE LOS ANGELES TIMES TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2019