John Lithgow

“This is Sullivan’s Travels by Preston Sturges. He was a kind of preppy Yale man who became this genius at making people laugh. But there was always something more than just laughter in it. Joel McCrea was one of his favorite leading men. He is Preston Sturges’s alter ego, a man who wants to make great films, great, great, stirring films about great humanity and torment and trials and tribulations and triumph. But he, ultimately, because he subjects himself to trials and tribulations, he discovers that the most valuable thing a movie can do is to make you laugh. Sullivan’s Travels is my favorite.”

“This Sporting Life is a great example of the ‘kitchen sink’ school of gritty, kind of groundbreaking movie-making in the ’60s in England. The grittiest of all is This Sporting Life with Richard Harris, probably his greatest performance, as a rugby player. The screenplay was by David Storey and it’s directed by Lindsay Anderson. The reason I picked it is it’s a huge part of my life, ironically enough. There is a play that David Storey wrote which is basically derived from This Sporting Life. I played a role in it when its American premiere took place on Broadway, The Changing Room, when I was 27 years old. It was my Broadway debut. And two weeks after it debuted, I won a Tony Award for it. So, needless to say, that goes in my bag.”

“This is this kind of overlooked and great, great film, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, based on one of John le Carré’s earlier George Smiley detective novels. Smiley is actually a very small part in the film. The big part is played by Richard Burton. Absolutely heartbreaking. It’s so moving. And brilliantly played by Burton. I think one of his best film performances, especially when he pretends to be a drunkard. Watch for that.”

“Okay, what do we have here? Good. I had to include at least something that I was actually in. And this was the second of three films I did with the great master of the macabre, Brian De Palma. John Travolta and Nancy Allen and me in Blow Out. It’s all about a sound man who finds a little scrap of sound that he’s recorded that unwinds this very elaborate sort of Secret Service undercover crime. And I am the criminal in this case. I have been three of Brian’s villains. They’re all kind of innocuous, slightly faceless men who are supposed to be the last person you’d suspect of doing horrific Brian De Palma things. And, boy, just get a load of me in Blow Out. It’s really a masterful, wonderful film that makes you think differently for the rest of your life about movie sound.”

“Alfred Hitchcock. Of course I need to include Alfred Hitchcock. With my last pick, I would add Lady Vanishes. I don’t think he ever topped the skill, and the... Just the sheer joy of making people hold their breath through suspense. The Lady Vanishes. And this is the gentleman vanishes.”

“Here’s an entire anthology of the complete films of Jacques Tati. He’s one of my great comedy heroes, mainly because he and I are both ridiculously tall. He has a way of hopping on his... When he walks, he sort of hops up and down and he has a pipe and he has this curious posture. That’s Jacques Tati. A good deal of 3rd Rock from the Sun was stolen straight from either John Cleese or Jacques Tati. We’re the three tall men. Of this group, the great classic to me is Mon Oncle. He just takes his time setting up a comedy sequence. It can take five minutes to build to this astounding payoff. And it’s a lesson in comedy. So that belongs here too.”