John Lithgow

And in his life, he just suffered these terrible losses.

In the same year, when he was very young, he lost both his father and his older sister.

He went off to prep school where he was brutally beaten and

He had a horrifying plane accident in World War II when he was an RAF fighter pilot, a solo accident in the Libyan desert when, by rights, it should have killed him, but instead it just left him in terrible pain for his entire life.

He married Patricia Neal, who had three terrible strokes.

And even though it was a very troubled marriage, he obsessively nursed her.

Their four-month-old son, his pram was hit by a taxi in New York City.

And he grew up with brain damage.

And he lost his daughter at the age of seven.

from a variant of the measles.

These were tragedies that absolutely haunted him.

I'm convinced of that.

And it was almost as if he was angry at life.

because his life was so desperately difficult.

And you take all those things into account, and this is a highly intelligent, extremely clever, witty, and charming man who just has this dark streak of cruelty.

It's like he can't resist goading and tormenting people.

Well, everybody says it's just astounding how timely it is.

It's a play about a moment 40 years ago.

And here we were rehearsing it once again for Broadway and the same thing has happened.

Not chasing after the PLO, chasing after Hezbollah and trying to put an end to it.