Recently, John Lithgow has been confirmed to play Albus Dumbledore in the upcoming Harry Potter.
Now, he has hit out President Donald Trump’s second term, calling it a “pure disaster” for the arts in the U.S. after winning the Olivier Award for his role as Roald Dahl in the play Giant.
During his acceptance speech, he said, “Our administration has done some shocking, destructive things, but the one that grieves me most is taking over the Kennedy Center.”
He continued, “Deborah Rutter was fired from her position as president – even though she’d already resigned and had [several] months to go. She’s a very good friend of mine.”
“We co-chaired a commission on the arts and spent three years finding out the state of the arts in America [was] in crisis. Well, it’s really in crisis now. First there was coronavirus, now there’s this,” the actor noted.
John also said the situation of the arts in the U.S. right now is a “pure disaster—really disheartening.”
But he also included some tone of optimism. “It gives us all something to fight for and I think the arts are animated by that. Right now, everybody is in shock,” he concluded, adding, “bad times create good art.”
