ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Every week, a famous guest draws a card from our Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. John Lithgow is loved for his roles in movies like "Footloose" and "Shrek" and the TV show "3rd Rock From The Sun." And after more than 50 years in show business, he isn't slowing down. Just this year, he was in the Hulu series "The Old Man" as well as the movies "Conclave" and "Spellbound." He reflected on getting older with Wild Card host Rachel Martin.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
RACHEL MARTIN: One, two or three?
JOHN LITHGOW: Three.
MARTIN: Do you think there's more to reality than we can see or touch?
LITHGOW: More to reality than we can see or touch - I want to hear your answer to this 'cause I have no idea how to answer it.
MARTIN: I - so I think this is a question about death. I think it's a question about what happens to us when we die. That's what I think of when I think of this question.
LITHGOW: Mmm hmm. It's so interesting. My mind didn't go to that great demarcation between being alive and being dead. But I am very simplistic about that. I think of death as death. I don't think there's life after death or a soul after death. I had an extraordinary death experience. Two years ago, I directed that wonderful New Yorker Doug McGrath in his one-man show. He had a wonderful little off-Broadway success with it and was in his third week of a run. He was going to do it as long as he wanted in a tiny theater downtown. And he didn't show up at the theater one night because, in his office, by himself, at about 4 in the afternoon, he'd lain down, had a heart attack and died at age 64.
MARTIN: Oh, no.
LITHGOW: It was such a traumatic thing to experience. He died painlessly and almost courteously. He didn't make anybody else suffer over his death, except over the fact that it had happened like that.
MARTIN: Did that change anything for you and how you think of it? Did it make you any more or less comfortable with your own demise?
LITHGOW: More. More.
MARTIN: More comfortable?
LITHGOW: I just know it's coming.
MARTIN: Yeah.
LITHGOW: It's coming, and I think the best thing is to have a gracious ending. You know, I calculate my exit from any film or television or stage play, and I always want to have a good ending. Well, I want to have a good ending to my life, too. So (laughter) I can't believe I'm talking about these things. I've had three cancers in my life - first in 1988, 2004 and then only a couple of years ago - in every case, dealt with immediately and put an end to, you know? But I'm almost glad that I had the shocking experience of being told you have a malignancy - to have realistically contemplated, oh, my God, this might really - I might die of this. I think it was a useful experience to have...
MARTIN: Yeah.
LITHGOW: ...In terms of just putting your whole life into perspective.
SHAPIRO: For more from that conversation with John Lithgow, follow the Wild Card podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF TERRACE MARTIN SONG, "THIS MORNING") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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