In san rafael and one in morocco would love to see you there. We like books. We are happy you are here tonight. My first memory of john lithgow is seeing him as a paranoid passenger in a 1983 remake of the classic Twilight Zone episode nightmare at 20,000 feet. Absolutely terrifying. Its impossible to list all the films plays and Television Series featuring john lithgow but heres a sampling. On television he played dyck sullivan in the sitcom third rock from the sun. Arthur mitchell and dexter and Sir Winston Churchill and the crown. Wonderful. His credits include harry in the hendersons, shrek, love is strange, the world according to dark and terms of endearment. He played disgrace late fox news ceo roger ailes in the upcoming film bombshell. I understand thats coming out in time for christmas. And hanukkah, excuse me. On the stage he has appeared in Sweet Success and dirty Rotten Scoundrels and he made his wellsite Shakespeare Company debut as mel bodio in 12 tonight. Last year he started on broadway opposite Laurie Metcalf in hillary and clinton. And here are a couple things you dont know about john lithgow. He spent his childhood years in Yellow Springs ohio where Coretta Scott king babysat him. He attended Harvard College and graduated with an ab magna cum laude in history and literature. In 2005 he became the first actor ever to deliver commencement speech at harvard and received an honorary doctor of arts from his alma mater. [applause] he is smart. Hes also written a number of books for children and number are marsupials who, ab john lithgow is here tonight with his shifty or copoetry collection chronically Donald Trumps presidency. If we are lucky he might sing a couple of them for us. He appears in conversation with marins own Michael Crosby hosted kqed forum and professor of english and language and literature at San Francisco state university. Please join me and give a warm welcome to john lithgow and michael caskey. [applause] not only is one of our finest and clearly most respected and appropriately activist. He is also a man whos written a book thats very funny political satire. He is also someone whos done drawings in the books. He plays the banjo. I thought i would begin the conversation talking about having you find out something about him before or talk about the roles hes played not only in the Silver Screen but also television and broadway as well. Lets talk about your background. Barbara mentioned he also played mel bodio, also revere. Some extraordinary experience on the stage in shakespearean productions. How much of this has to do your whole acting career. How much of it had to do with your dad . A huge amount. I dont think i wouldve become an actor if it wasnt for my dad. He was a protean producer of shakespeare when i was growing up. He founded and ran for shakespeare festival. More or less the same festival but they reconstituted in four different places in ohio. Starting with the antioch festival which ran about eight years and produced every single one of shakespeares plays. That was up until i was about 12 years old. He produced. You didnt know you were an aspiring actor until you goggled applause i alluded to. Growing up i didnt really think about being an actor. I wanted to be an artist. As a matter of fact, my mentor as a child is in the audience tonight. [applause] bud and his father who was a great watercolor is and they were my idols as a child. I was quite fixed on being a painter. I was thrilled to be able to show the cover of my book tonight which is painted in watercolor. Ended up at harvard after barry check her childhood. I fell in with the theater gang almost immediately. I was a trained actor in spite of myself and became the campus star. If you start anything in harvard, thats what you better do. I heard lots of laughter and lots of applause and i decided to accede to my destiny. And what a destiny its been. I was thinking about how he evolved as an actor. He began to take on so many different roles in such a versatility of acting. I remember the first time i was struck by your performance. This is the moment you are on that trajectory when you are headed toward what eventually would be your stardom. Thats when he played Roberta Muldoon in the world according to god. It was a breakthrough for you. It was a major breakthrough. I had done some films before that. It was a real eyecatching performance. Roberta muldoon was already a star from the novel john irving wrote. I read that novel about two years before Film Production started. I never dreamed the book could be made into a film. George roy hill summoned me to read for the part i asked my agent id love to read to be in a movie but for what role in my agents assistant said i dont know. Theres a typo on the cast list. It says roberta but obviously thats not right. I suddenly saw the whole thing that i was the perfect Roberta Muldoon. What a role to play. Especially when you think about the fact that at that time the whole idea of transsexuality is. Now to come especially out here in the west coast in california commonplace but but at that time you are breaking barriers. Was very disarming a for sure. To see a deeply sympathetic kind role, character in the friend of the lead who is a character like roberta who was bizarre and comical and like a joke, and one or two scenes was a deeply moving character. It startled people and as far as transsexual compels, i got the most poignant and heartbreaking letters from change gender people. Saying you have no idea what its like to go into a Movie Theater and see a character, a transsexual who is not a serial killer or a freak or a comic figure but to see someone who is genuine and real and i played the part exactly that way. Theres nothing kant about it, i played it as much like me as if i were a woman. Thats what many appreciate about your work. Your humanity and bring a lot of empathy and humanity were two roles. And you play a serial killer in dexter and youre about to appear and a movie playing roger ailes no less. [laughter] which means of course you had to increase your body size to about the size Russell Crowe had a movie with the hbo or showtime . He played roger ailes and then you played as Winston Churchill on one academy awards. Is there any thing that goes on in your mind or influence by the roles that these others occupy. I did not watch Russell Crowe and i did not watch gary oldman until the crown was all done. What can you do, lots of actors have played hamlet, i had the curious fortune, i went over to play knobby all which you market to mention when stephen fry and derek jacobi were all playing him. I played Winston Churchill when gary oldman and brian cox in two or three other people were plain Winston Churchill and now it happens, i play roger ailes and proceeded by Russell Crowe. But more power to them, my intention is to burde burn theml off the screen. [laughter] [cheering] and you can extend your humanity to roger ailes. Actually, i did all that i could to extend my humanity to roger ailes. Of course hes a billionair vil. Its about the women of fox in gretchen color son, susan estrich, several others played, nicole kidman, allison janney, connie britton, kate mckinnon, incredible ensemble of smart and committed actresses and it is their movie. Everything that they do is in reaction to the reality of roger ailes and what he created up fox. To me that was a great asset, poor Russell Crowe had to be the major player in eight part series about roger ailes. I did not watch because i do not want my mind modeled as i played the part. But i also do not want to because i did not want to see eight hours of roger ailes. [laughter] i really do feel he had a terrible burden to carry. I did have a fat suit that made me look 300 pounds, i carry that burden. [laughter] but i was nearly the inciting incident of the story and its very important and urgent story about and for women. [applause] heres what we call in my trade, and appropriate attempt that and think about fox news watchers and how they would respond to your book. [laughter] im wondering if you have some thoughts on that. This is a difficult thing for you to give to come out of your profession as an actor and be open to the public and it took some nerve encourage. I give you kudos for that. But im wondering to what extent youre thinking about what Hillary Clinton called the deplorables reading this book. I gave it some thought and i knew there would be feedback, that would be very negative. But i felt probably serious thought or rightwing supporters of donald trump would want to burn my book but if they were going to burn it, they would have to buy it first. [laughter] and sure enough, its a number three bestseller on the New York Times nonfiction list as of yesterday. [applause] they must want to burn a lot of books. [laughter] theres a photo of john earlier signing books and again, a testament to his grit as opposed there was about 400 people who wanted a book signing. Also the publicist sent a note that said make sure you mention on the New York Times bestseller list. Congratulations. The book has hit a nerve, popular nerve, not just among the antitroopers, and the never trumpers but you certainly have the whole cast of characters and you have everybody and i just want to mention that gail collins, some mightve seen in todays near time said who in terms cabinet is the most detested and the most vilified and a landslide for our attorney general bill barr. A landslide. So going to ask you, who do you find, you have the whole cast of characters, who defined you play villains and you know villains, not what trump himself, who is the villain at the top of the food chain. Stephen miller. [applause] to me he is so hidden in like a ghoul hidden away in the white house. I think on two occasions he has actually come out and done ahead appearance and interview on sunday morning and made crazy insane fool of himself, its like they hustle him back into the white house because he dominates a substantial amount of our domestic policy. Ive written a poem about him called the little man who is not all there. [laughter] just based on the Edward Hughes poem. Yesterday on the stair i met a man who was not there. He was not there today, i wish i wish he would go away. [laughter] so it wasnt that long with Kellyanne Conway who does not seem to be fireball. Is very peculiar, the only ones left are like at the alamo, kelly yan, stephen miller, jared and ivanka and trump. Thats all thats left. It is so weird. Except now he has recruited bill barr but he was not there at the beginning, if you go through my book there are 33 poems that means there are roughly 30 different subjects who might be secure. 80 are long gone. Fire, resigned, walked off the job, so they are fair game. Trump himself has turned against all of them. So its one of the phenomenal things about this a ministration, the rate of turnover. In fact, one great surface the book serves a great Minor Service that it serves as a history book. Half of these people were quickly forgotten. That new cycles make them evaporate. You forget tom price, harold bornstein, iranian jackson, all these peculiar scott pruitt, these people who were big, important, alarming news to a half years ago, the virtually forgotten, but not in my book. You provide nice footnotes to remind us of the historical sight of who they were. Each poem if you have not open the book is accompanied by a bio at the end of the poem. Ill ask you the question which is foremost in peoples mind and that is in favor of the impeachment where we see it go . [laughter] i think its rather inevitable that the evidence accumulates so fast and trump is so completel completely he seems to be oblivious about his own propensity for crime. [laughter] it just does not occur to him that hes done anything wrong. But thank god for nancy pelosi. Thats all i can say. [applause] she is there to inform him on the subject. [laughter] is there anything to trump when you think about it, almost ottoman aristotle playbook from the poetics, thinking with this glorious mess and pride i want to get to something that i read about you. He also has a kind of inevitable tragedy about him too. Look, donald trump will be seen by history as the worst american president that weve had, theres no question about that. There is no way he can change the story, thats his legacy, hes doomed to that legacy, he can say all he wants that hes a greatest president but no, its perfectly obvious hell be regarded as the worst president weve ever had, the most corrupt, done the most damage, thats inevitable. That means hes a pitiable figure in my mind. And i am plenty pissed off at him. But i am in the business of empathy as an actor. In some little part of me feels terribly sorry for this man. For one thing i would not be him for all the tea in china and honestly arent that many people i would say that about. He had a pretty good life beforehand as many would say. Mara lago and the rich mans life. But the segway i was going to go to was something i read about you, this is a president who cannot make any admission of having a mistake in his life. You make one big mistake and i want to come to this, it gives you more humility than a president by any stretch. What you said, you turn down playing and betrayal to do a small play for about two or three weeks and then it was go gone, it was a big mistake and turned out to be your good fortune. Yes, it was actually perfectly wonderful, the opposite of a cautionary tale, i dont know what to call the butter story with a wonderful happy ending. I was asked to be in the american premiere of betrayal which has become arguably his masterpiece and at the time, a good friend of mine also wanted me to do his new play down at joe pats Public Theater. I had to choose between the two and my agent said to the downtown play. You been doing all this english stuff in American Play by an American Playwright notwithstanding the fact that the role i was to play was a swede. [laughter] be bold, be bold makeable choice. So i did it, i knew it was a complete flop and i found out on Opening Night that my agent also represented its director. [laughter] and betrayal was a huge hit. Randall your agent . No i did not keep him as an agent. Betrayal was huge, gigantic and i was in despair, for an actor, i dont know how many actors in the audience what you want to slit your wrist when you make a blunder like that. But as a result of that i was available for a little job that rehearsed for three weeks in l. A. In order to be shot in texas. During the three week rehearsal. In l. A. , i was introduced to the women i have now been married to for 38 years. [applause] my wife mary jo it was around that time that i devised my words to live by, the model that i live by. Whenever you have a difficult choice to make like that in my profession, dont worry, whatever choice you make, its sure to be the wrong one. [laughter] you had a wonderful marriage and that prompt me too ask about your marriage if i may because your wife is an academic and it seems to be very harmonious, you both so publicly you cannot do without each other and thats wonderful in itself. But i was struck by the fact that you describe your wife highly intellectual and very constant, vital and you describe yourself as phlegmatic. Thats a word you use. In many ways i think thats perhaps how you see yourself. I consider myself kind of slow moving, slow witted, lazy. Laid back. I am a successful actor which means people asked me too act all the time and once you act, everything is done for you, lines are written for you, close are picked for you, you are told exactly where to stand, where to sit, its the most irresponsible life there is. [laughter] it allows you certain really not responsible for anything. A show flops, its never your fault. [laughter] i remember him saying because the great actors are able to absorb so many other characters other than themselves, it does not allow them to have the intellect and the hit going on this thing youre talking about that your wife has that you feel you do not have. I remember saying that to david and he says is nonsense. Actors are the smartest and most directive motivated people i know. Where do you come in on that . I can tell smart actors, the crowd was absolutely full of highly intelligent actors in really good actors, they knew their craft but they were so engaged with the world, you come in to work with them and we all gathered to rehearsed, they already knew everything there was to know about their characters, characters they had done all their work, it was simply they were journeymen, they were artistthey were an ant that had all gone to the same academies and not only very intelligent but very interested in many, many things. And im not just saying this to compare english actors with american actors, i think its true of the very best american actors to. Did you ever study not in that field, i studied in the english system. I went over going to college i went to landrum. Was it useful . It was wonderful, it was a fantastic time to be in london, the late 60s, the beatles were still together and it was a great time for theater with peter hall and trevor, the younger structure over at the rac, and the academic training was fantastic, i may not have needed it, i was certainly ready to go in the workforce that i never been to england, and you shakespeare well but i never spent any time in his nation and the beautiful english countryside. So i dont know how indispensable it was but it was a wonderful year, to your. Ive heard actors complain about the rigor and the demanding more from nature of memorizing so many lines, how does that work for you . That is the easiest part. Ive always said, the really hard part of acting is dealing with bad writing. The work is done for you. The table is set. You just have to come and br