John Lithgow keeps you guessing
Trial & Error Debuts Tuesday, CTV/NBC
Did he do it? NEW YO R K He does it. John Lithgow, who stars in NBC’s daffy new comedy Trial & Error as a poetry prof who may or may not have murdered his wife, is clearly guilty of making viewers laugh.
He’s also guilty, in a career spanning nearly a half-century, of freaking out viewers (item: his chilling psycho-killer in the Showtime series Dexter) or warming the heart with his character’s humanity (such as his breakout performance as Roberta Muldoon, the transgender former pro football player in The World According to Garp).
His birth certificate identifies him as John Arthur Lithgow, but as an actor, his middle name is Versatile. To wit: Right now he can be seen in the acclaimed Netflix series The Crown as British prime minister Winston Churchill.
Meanwhile, he plays eccentric Larry Henderson on Trial & Error, which premières with back-toback episodes Tuesday on NBC and CTV. Like the dead-serious docuseries (such as Making a Murderer and The Staircase) it spoofs, Trial & Error tracks its wacky murder case across the season’s 13 episodes, with Larry’s innocence or guilt kept under wraps until the finale.
Meanwhile, it surrounds Larry with fellow oddballs played by costars Steven Boyer, Sherri Shepherd, Krysta Rodriguez, Jayma Mays and Nicholas D’Agosto.
“I’m someone who’s known for being really funny, very scary and occasionally very touching,” says Lithgow, “and the role requires all those three parts.”
As Lithgow sizes him up, Larry is a chap “with mood swings, mental blind spots and no sense of proportion: The cable guy failing to arrive and his wife lying dead on the floor are matters of equal urgency and importance to him.”
There’s something adaptable, a faithful unexpectedness about Lithgow, however readily familiar he is to audiences with that lanky, six-foot-four frame and the face a producer once defined for him as “in neutral: The audience never knows which way it’s gonna go.”
“Such a curious backhanded compliment — You have such a bland face — and it’s always stayed with me,” says Lithgow. “I love to be surprising.”