Dave Davies

He spoke with Terry Gross.

Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden.

Our executive producer is Sam Brigger.

Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.

Do you ever wish you could predict the future?

Well, some scientists try to do that every year, forecasting when cherry blossom trees will bloom each spring.

It's a wild guess, but there is some science involved in it.

And there is a lot riding on the peak bloom forecast.

Tourism, climate change models, and more.

Listen to Shortwave on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts to hear how scientists are predicting the future.

This is Fresh Air.

I'm Dave Davies.

Our guest today, John Lithgow, is an actor you can probably recall from a half dozen roles off the top of your head.

But the remarkable thing about his nearly 200 performances on stage, screen, and television is that age 80, he's still going strong.

You can see him playing an intelligence agent with Jeff Bridges in the FX action series The Old Man.

He plays the character Dumbledore in a new HBO Harry Potter series that premieres in December.

And he's starring now on Broadway, doing eight performances a week in the play Giant, about a troubling side to renowned children's author Roald Dahl.

Among Lithgow's many career honors are Oscar nominations for his roles in the film The World According to Garp and Terms of Endearment, and six Primetime Emmy Awards for playing Winston Churchill in The Crown, a serial killer in the series Dexter, and an alien visiting Earth in the sitcom Third Rock from the Sun.

He's been nominated for six Tony Awards and won twice, including once for his very first appearance on Broadway.