John Lithgow: Agent Told Me ‘I’d Rather You Play A Fly Than A Homosexual’

Hollywood legend John Lithgow told Yahoo Movies that attitudes towards straight actors playing gay roles used to be so archaic that his agent once told him: ‘I’d Rather You Play A Fly Than A Homosexual’.

- Every Superhero Movie Release Date Until 2020
- 14 Actors Who Suffered Serious Injuries On Set
- Why Jupiter Ascending Flopping Is Bad For Movies

The 69-year-old is currently starring in buzzy indie drama ‘Love Is Strange’, where he plays painter Ben, whose music teacher partner George (Alfred Molina) is sacked after the pair get married. Forced to sell their apartment, they move in with various friends and family members, only to find themselves out of their comfort zone and struggling to keep it together.

Shot in New York over 27 days on a £787,000 budget, ‘Love is Strange’ received rave reviews and many critics felt it was unfairly ignored by the Oscar voters.

While the sexuality of the characters is a distant second to recreating the authenticity of a long-term relationship, Lithgow has first-hand experience of Hollywood’s intransigence about portraying realistic gay characters.

“I don’t think that’s nearly as much the case as it used to be,” he says. “I turned down ‘The Fly’ in the mid-Eighties…it seemed icky to me, gruesome. Within months, I was asked to be in a television version of a play called ‘As Is’ which was the first drama written about the AIDS crisis.

My agent said, ‘I’d rather have you play a fly than a homosexual.’ That was a different era. That’s gone, thank God.”

In fact, Lithgow is one of the few actors who’s not been afraid to tackle different sexualities on-screen.

His first Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination came in 1983 for playing transgender character Roberta Muldoon in ‘The World According To Garp’ opposite Robin Williams (his second was a year later for ‘Terms Of Endearment’).

One film he strangely wasn’t nominated for was 1993 Stallone mountaineering pic ‘Cliffhanger’, where he played villainous Brit Eric Qualen.

“There wasn’t a tremendous amount of thought given to anybody’s characterisations on that film,” he laughs.

“Literally days before we were shooting, we were casting about. I guess I grabbed for Basil Rathbone at the last second. And now that I look at it, I think my English accent is horrendous. I’ve gotten much better since then.”

“It was a lot of fun,” he remembers of shooting the classic action flick. “We were four months in Italy – two months in the Dolomites and two months in Rome and I worked maybe one fourth of the time. It was the best gig I ever had.”

More recently, he balances a stellar career on Broadway with roles in movies like ‘Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes’ and ‘Interstellar’.

“I remember auditioning when I was in my mid-twenties for a play in New York which I did not get,” he recalls. “The director said, ‘you’re a character actor and you mustn’t be too frustrated because you’re going to grow into all your best work.’ I knew I was being told I hadn’t got the role, which I didn’t really want to hear. But he’s absolutely right.”

Of course, it might all have been so different. Back in 1990, Lithgow was down to the final two for an iconic part which may have altered his screen destiny.

“If [Anthony] Hopkins had turned it down, I would have played Hannibal Lecter,” he reveals of his near-miss for ‘The Silence Of The Lambs’.

“When I went in to talk to [director] Jonathan Demme about it, they had offered it to Hopkins that morning. It was the first thing he said to me. It wasn’t the best news!”

‘Love Is Strange’ is out on 13 February. Check out our exclusive clip from the film below.

- The Spider-Man Movies: What Went Wrong?
- All Snape’s Scenes From Harry Potter In One Video
- The Most Outrageous Movie Star Paydays

Photos: Orion/Everett/Giphy/Rex/Moviestore/Sony Pictures