John Lithgow

First of all, it began entertaining my own children, so it was very personal to me.

I ended up doing three albums for kids, and I started doing concerts with major orchestras, like hour-long concerts.

And I must have performed with about a dozen of them, including the Pittsburgh and the Baltimore and the Chicago and the—

and the San Diego and San Francisco.

What was thrilling about it, and you're right, it was not for money at all.

It was just an ecstatic experience entertaining children.

I've always felt that what we actors aspire to is suspension of disbelief.

making an audience believe for even a half a second that what they're seeing is what is actually happening.

And not a fiction, it's the real thing.

And it'll make you laugh, cry, or scream out in terror.

And just that feeling that, ooh, I pulled it off.

I fooled them for a second, like a magician pulling off a great trick.

You never really fool adults.

You know you're in the same...

theater with them and they're watching actors, paid actors speaking other people's words.

But kids completely suspend their disbelief, completely.

They are absolutely thrilled by everything they see.

And my concerts with them were these kind of interesting

All sorts of interactive games.

I would play this game called Guess the Animals where I would start to draw an animal on an enormous easel and they would start screaming, it's a hippo, it's a hippo.