John Lithgow says his time on ‘3rd Rock from the Sun’ were his ‘happiest years as an actor’

John Lithgow, seen here at the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, says his time on "3rd Rock from the Sun" were his "happiest years as an actor." (Phillip Faraone/VF25/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Oscar-nominated actor John Lithgow, who has portrayed everyone from Winston Churchill to a Cardinal at the Vatican, apparently really misses his days playing an alien.

According to Lithgow, his time playing Dick Solomon on the NBC comedy “3rd Rock from the Sun” are years he remembers fondly.

“It was the six happiest years as an actor,” Lithgow said on Monday’s episode of the “Smartless” podcast. “Just interacting with this great writing staff, the ‘3rd Rock’ staff was so terrific and it was so inane.”

On the sitcom, Lithgow played the high commander of an alien expedition who lands on Earth with his alien cohorts posing as a family.

It was a concept that he described as “flat out nutball farce” and something Lithgow never thought he would do.

In fact, Lithgow admitted that when the showrunners initially pitched him the idea for the show, he thought, “how do I say ‘no’ to this fast enough?”

It only took five minutes for the show to make sense to him, he said, adding that once he heard the full concept, “it just seemed, suddenly, like ‘What in the world have I been waiting for?’”

“3rd Rock” debuted on NBC in 1996 and ran until 2001. Jane Curtin, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Kristen Johnston and French Stewart rounded out the cast.

The series quickly became a hit and developed a cult following, something that Lithgow said he and his castmates had a feeling would happen before any of the 13 episodes they’d shot aired.

“We had realized, oh my God, we really have something here,” he said. “We felt like we had the hope diamond in our pocket.”

Lithgow most recently appeared in “Conclave,” which was nominated for best picture at the Oscars earlier this month. He also spoke about preparing to play Dumbledore in HBO’s upcoming “Harry Potter” TV series during Monday’s podcast.

Article by Alli Rosenbloom.