Dave Davies

It was something he said to a reporter, right?

Right.

And he did have a hard life in a lot of ways, right?

This play is being performed now and was performed in England at a time when there's very bitter division and controversy about actions of the Israeli military in Gaza.

Not unlike in some ways this controversy about the –

Invasion of Lebanon, which was launched in response to PLO rocket attacks in Israel.

This, of course, the Gaza invasion response to that savage attack, the October 7th attack by Hamas.

I'm wondering what reaction you've heard to the play, what kind of conversations it sparked.

Yeah.

We should note that in 2020, Roald Dahl's family posted an apology for his anti-Semitism on the family website.

We need to take a break here.

Let me reintroduce you.

We are speaking with actor John Lithgow.

He stars as Roald Dahl in the new Broadway play Giant.

We'll continue our conversation in just a moment.

I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.

I wanted to talk about some of your other iconic roles.

There are a lot of them.

And one of them that I really remembered was you playing Winston Churchill in the series The Crown, which was created by Peter Morgan.

I love that series.