
Age: 80
male
John Arthur Lithgow (born October 19, 1945) is an American actor. He studied at Harvard University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before becoming known for his diverse work on stage and screen. He has received numerous accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, four Grammy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. Lithgow won two Tony Awards, his first for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his Broadway debut in The Changing Room (1972) and his second for Best Actor in a Musical for the musical Sweet Smell of Success (2002). He was Tony-nominated for Requiem for a Heavyweight (1985), M. Butterfly (1988), and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005). He has acted in the plays The Columnist (2012), A Delicate Balance (2014), and Hillary and Clinton (2019). He portrayed Roald Dahl in the play Giant on the West End, for which he was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor. He starred as Dick Solomon in the television sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001), winning three Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. He received further Primetime Emmy Awards for his performances as Arthur Mitchell in the drama Dexter (2009) and as Winston Churchill in the Netflix drama The Crown (2016–2019). He also starred in HBO's Perry Mason (2020) and FX's The Old Man (2022). On film, he has received two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor nominations for his roles as a transgender ex-football player in The World According to Garp (1982) and a lonely banker in Terms of Endearment (1983). He also acted in All That Jazz (1979), Blow Out (1981), Footloose (1984), Harry and the Hendersons (1987), A Civil Action (1998), Shrek (2001), Kinsey (2004), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Love Is Strange (2014), Interstellar (2014), Late Night (2019), Bombshell (2019), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), and Conclave (2024).

On Planet 51, green extraterrestrials live peacefully in a society reminiscent of the United States during the 1950s. One day, a mysterious spacecraft lands in the town of Glipforg. NASA astronaut Charles T. "Chuck" Baker emerges from it and is shocked to find the planet inhabited. Chuck escapes to the town’s planetarium, where he meets teenage alien Lem, who works there part-time. Realizing Chuck is not a threat, Lem agrees to help return him to his spacecraft before command module Odyssey in Planet 51's orbit departs for Earth and leaves him stranded. Planet 51's army, led by the paranoid General Grawl, arrives to inspect the spacecraft. Grawl, after Chuck's MP3 player is accidentally started, deduces that the astronaut is an alien invader bent on turning planet’s population into zombies, and a manhunt ensues throughout Glipforg. Lem enlists the help of his best friend Skiff, a science fiction aficionado with conspiracy theories about the so-called "Base 9", to hide Chuck away from the army. During his efforts to conceal Chuck, Lem inadvertently upsets his neighbor and crush Neera, who believes the alien is friendly, and is also fired from his job when his boss discovers Chuck. In Lem’s room, Chuck reunites with a dog-like NASA probe called Rover, which freed itself from the army’s base after tracking Chuck with a GPS and headed for the city and which befriends a small, domesticated Xenomorph. After the army searches Lem’s home for traces of the alien, Lem and Skiff move Chuck to a comic book store Skiff works at, where Glipforg’s news station manages to capture Chuck acting out references to Earth’s pop culture, which is misinterpreted as alien threats. After escaping the store from the invading army, Grawl has Chuck’s spacecraft moved to a secret location. Chuck is later captured by Grawl’s forces during a festive movie premiere in town, and is slated to have his brain removed by alien scientist Professor Kipple. When Lem defends Chuck, Kipple deems him a zombie minion. Chuck, resigned to his fate, pretends to release Lem from his "mind control" and is taken away with Rover to Base 9, which Grawl inadvertently reveals. Lem gets his job back, but is determined to rescue Chuck. Joined by Skiff, Neera, her younger brother Eckle, and Rover (who escaped the army again), Lem tracks down Base 9's location in the desert to a gas station where Skiff inadvertently opens a gate to the underground base. They free Chuck from Professor Kipple and find his spacecraft, but they are cornered by Grawl and his forces. Bent on eliminating Chuck, Grawl reveals has the base rigged to explode. Lem tricks the General into activating the countdown. Enraged, Grawl attempts to shoot Lem, but misses and the stray bullet ignites an explosive, causing Grawl to be trapped under debris. Chuck rescues Grawl before launching his spacecraft into Planet 51’s orbit, escaping Base 9’s destruction. After admiring Planet 51’s view from space, Lem successfully asks Neera out on a date, while Grawl expresses his gratitude to Chuck for saving him. Chuck returns his friends home and allows Rover to stay behind with Skiff, who has connected with the probe, and bids Lem and the rest of Glipforg farewell before launching back into space, but the last seconds of the film reveal that the little Xenomorph befriended by Rover is on board.






