![]() The cast would be rounded out by Kristen Johnson, French Stewart and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, with each one playing an alien-disguised-as-human part of Dick Solomon’s team. “And then I said to my agent, ‘I think I should pass on this.’ And he said, ‘Well, they got Lithgow.’ And I said, ‘I’m gonna take it.’” “I read 3rd Rock From the Sun and I really didn’t get it,” Burrows later confessed. James Burrows, the TV director who had also been a co-creator of Cheers, soon signed on for the pilot. The actor saw 3rd Rock as a way to break free of being typecast.īeyond star power, Lithgow’s involvement added gravitational pull to the project. This was beginning to bother me," Lithgow recalled in the book Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV. ![]() I was slowly turning into this kind of John Malkovich, this strange movie heavy. "Most most recent jobs had been Raising Cane, Cliffhanger, Ricochet. The actor had noticed a trend in his career and was looking to shake things up. Part of the reason Lithgow said yes came down to timing. Watch John Lithgow (In Leather Pants) on '3rd Rock From the Sun' “Within five minutes, persuaded me to be in 3rd Rock From the Sun.” However, after being presented a script and hearing the Turners' confidence, the actor was convinced. “I thought, ‘How am I going to say no as graciously as I can and get out of here?’” Lithgow recalled. He knew he wasn’t going to do it, he was just having a lovely breakfast with us.”Īfter exchanging pleasantries and casual conversation, the actor was told of the alien comedy idea. The actor had previously declined the role of Frasier Crane on Cheers for this exact reason. “Lithgow was not going to do a series,” Carsey explained, noting that Lithgow’s disinterest in doing an episodic sitcom was well-known in the TV industry. The actor, thinking it was just a social meeting, was surprised when he arrived at the restaurant and saw producers alongside the writing team. The Turners invited Lithgow to join them for breakfast, hoping to sell him on the show. “Bonnie and Terry had worked with John Lithgow at Saturday Night Live when he was a guest host,” Werner recalled. “They saw me as a comic,” Lithgow later recalled in a conversation with the John F. Dick Solomon, Lithgow emerged as the perfect man for the role. ![]() As the writing team was creating 3rd Rock, and its lead character, Dr. During their stint on the sketch comedy show, actor John Lithgow had served as guest host on two separate occasions. With that basic premise, Carsey and Werner handed creative reins over to Bonnie and Terry Turner, a husband-and-wife writing team who had made a name for themselves on Saturday Night Live. ![]()
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