John Lithgow loves Britain, so he was floored to be cast as Winston Churchill. Ahead of The Crown, the beloved actor talks toff-porn, stripping and squirrels

‘Next to the word ‘luvvie’ in the dictionary, there’s a picture of me,” says John Lithgow. “At least in the American editions.”

Like many of Lithgow’s statements, it’s followed by a hearty laugh, signalling both self-deprecation and a punchline. He does say some supremely luvvie-ish comments, to be honest: “Good acting is really excellent carpentry”, “Shakespeare was mother’s milk”. And when he held a 70th birthday party last year in England, half of British theatre found itself at his home. But it is very difficult not to warm to him. He’s genial and open and, underneath it all, not the slightest bit pompous.

Luvvie or not, Lithgow does have a love affair with Britain and its theatre. Shakespeare really was “mother’s milk”: his father ran a touring theatre company that put on every Shakespeare play. He played Mustard Seed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream aged seven, “my first great role,” he says (followed by that laugh). He studied drama in London, at Lamda, and has performed in British plays on both sides of the Atlantic, including Nicholas Hytner’s The Magistrate at the National in 2012. Hytner is a dear friend, of course.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The ultimate luvvie? John Lithgow. Photograph: Maarten de Boer/Getty Images Portrait

All that could be put in jeopardy by Lithgow’s latest role, though: Winston Churchill. The all-time greatest, most British Briton ever, played by a Yank! It’s the sort of thing Jeremy Clarkson would drive a tank on to your lawn over. Hytner told him, “You should know there will be a contract out on your head from every major actor in England.”

Even without Lithgow’s Churchill, The Crown looks set to ruffle feathers across this sceptred isle. It is a dramatisation of the life of Queen Elizabeth II, beginning with her ascent to the throne and ending – well, who knows where? Created for Netflix by Peter Morgan (who has royal form after The Queen and The Audience), it’s both an ingenious and a blindingly obvious idea: Downton toff-porn but with political heft – a real-life Game of Thrones. Did no British network dare tackle the topic?

Buckingham Palace has maintained the expected dignified silence, but Morgan claims they are “very, very aware” of the series. Equally ruffled, though, will be those who are anti-monarchy, for The Crown audaciously portrays the Windsors as human beings. Claire Foy is entirely sympathetic as the reluctant young Elizabeth; Matt Smith as a dashing Prince Philip might be a casting gloss too far, but he is at least offending African leaders by the second episode. And it would take a heart of stone not to be swayed by Jared Harris’s poignant George VI, diagnosed with lung cancer and unable to communicate his plight, politically or emotionally. Wily old Churchill, in his second term as Prime Minister, knows of the king’s illness well before he does, of course.

Netflix's glittering Crown could leave BBC looking a little dull Read more

“The monarchy is a very romantic idea of kings and queens and princes and princesses,” says Lithgow. “They are the major characters in most fairytales. What Peter Morgan has discovered is really the other side of that romance – the private side of the public.”

Lithgow was “floored, completely floored” to be offered the role. He did what anyone would do in that situation: he looked in the mirror, seeking a resemblance. “And I said, ‘yeah I can sort of see that!’” That laugh again. “You get north of 70 years old and you become a little Churchillian, in spite of yourself.”

There was the height thing. Churchill was 5’6”; Lithgow is 6’4”. “He was a little bulldog, and I’m a big lummox.” Lithgow stoops as much as he can in The Crown, and they scaled up the fake door to 10 Downing Street to make him look shorter. The dialect coach “worked very hard on my inflexion, but he worked just as hard with all the Brits. 1950s Royal Family English is very specific.” Pretty much the only person who still speaks it is the Queen.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘He was a little bulldog, and I’m a big lummox’ … the Crown creators had to scale up the fake door to 10 Downing Street to make Lithgow look shorter. Photograph: Alex Bailey/Netflix

Verisimilitude is hardly the name of the game here. You could call Lithgow stunt casting, a marquee name for the credits, but it’s also an antidote to what Morgan calls “Churchill fatigue”. British theatreland is unlikely to put a contract on Lithgow’s head because most of them have already played Churchill: Timothy Spall, Michael Gambon, Robert Hardy, Brian Cox, Simon Russell Beale, Albert Finney. Besides, Lithgow once played Franklin D Roosevelt opposite Bob Hoskins’ Churchill, with Michael Caine as Stalin.

Inevitably, The Crown invites comparisons between the civilised political discourse of the Churchill days and current standards. Unsurprisingly, Lithgow, a lifelong Democrat, despairs of Donald Trump – “this is a horrible time right now” – and describes Brexit as “a disaster”. Then again, at the time of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, he points out, the US was mired in McCarthyism.

Has he thought of playing Trump? “I would looooove to play Trump! He fascinates me so much. Fascinates and appals me. It’s unbelievable that he’s gotten this far, just unbelievable.” They’re the same age, and about the same height, at least. Is he already studying Trump’s mannerisms? “Not studying, but I just can’t get enough of it. I don’t want to miss anything.”

Lithgow has never been one to go for the comfortable role. His loveable alien dad in Third Rock from the Sun would have condemned a less adventurous actor to perpetual typecasting, but he played off that persona as a creepy serial killer (in TV’s Dexter). He’s done everything from Shrek to Footloose, Interstellar to King Lear (his life’s ambition). And just a few years back he gave one of the best performances of his career in Love Is Strange, as a gay Manhattan artist forced to move in with his nephew and fold that 6’4” frame into a teenager’s bunk bed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The loveable aliens … Lithgow in Third Rock from the Sun. Photograph: Company/REX/Shutterstock

“Well, you try to find things that take people aback,” he says. His favourite scene in Love Is Strange is where he’s woken up in the middle of the day, looking a mess, in just his pyjama bottoms. “An old man, half-naked,” he laughs.

Lithgow is constantly working – TV, cinema, stage. He’s written several children’s books (Seussian fables whose subjects have included kangaroos, manatees and an artistically gifted squirrel named Micawber), as well as a memoir (luvvie-ishly titled Drama: An Actor’s Education). He’s recorded adults’ and children’s music (he was somehow persuaded to sing The Laughing Policeman). Does he never stop? “We’re all fairly neurotic people, we actors. We have to be impressing somebody at any given moment.” He laughs again. “My wife tells me I always have to have a project. A ‘projectophile’ or something. It’s true. I always feel like the grass is growing under my feet.”

And there are always more projects: having polished his British diction with The Crown, he’s already got his eye on the next one: “It suddenly occurred to me that Peter Morgan has to write about this Brexit moment,” he says. “And I want to play Boris Johnson. I want dibs on that part!”

• The Crown starts on Netflix on 4 November.