John Lithgow who plays Roger Ailes in 'Bombshell' turned down offer to play Trump in movie: 'It’s almost too close'
Although actor John Lithgow is no stranger to embodying infamous real-life personalities onscreen, there is one individual that he would never play in movies and that is President Donald Trump.
In a clip of an upcoming episode of 'Today with Willie Geist,' obtained by People magazine, the 74-year-old actor, who is just a year older than our current president, told the talk show host that he was offered the role of playing Trump on the silver screen but he turned it down.
“They actually asked me to play Donald Trump in a project,” John said in the clip. “I turned it down mainly because I was doing something else. I don’t think I would do it, it’s almost too close.”
Some of the other iconic characters from the pages of history - all with some or the other scandal attached to their name - that John has convincingly portrayed in movies includes disgraced former chairman and CEO of Fox News Roger Ailes, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and former president Bill Clinton.
In his latest project, 'Bombshell,' John plays Ailes. The drama also stars Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson, Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly and Margot Robbie as a fictional Fox News employee. Ailes resigned from the media company in July 2016, after he was accused of sexual harassment. He died in May 2017 at the age of 77.
When asked if embodying the prominent personalities on screen was a conscious career move, John said that it was not and it was just the kind of roles he was being offered at the time. “It’s what was offered to me. You get offered one and they come after you for another,” he said.
Earlier this month, the cast of the film received a Screen Actors Guild nomination for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture.
