Golden Globe winner John Lithgow opened up about his most recent role in Focus Features‘ latest thriller drama Conclave. Since making its theatrical debut last month, the Ralph Fiennes-led movie has received a Certified Fresh rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 232 reviews.
John Lithgow on what’s fascinating about the Conclave movie
In Conclave, Lithgow played the role of Joseph Cardinal Tremblay, who was one of the main candidates vying to become the next Pope. During a recent interview with ComingSoon, when asked about what he found most interesting about the film, Lithgow shared that he was fascinated about the duality of the story, as well as with each main character’s story.
“The fascinating duality between a sacred calling and very down-to-earth worldly ambitions, emotions like envy and jealousy, and greed and ambition,” the acclaimed actor said. “It’s just marvelous, the tension in every single one of the characters on the great wide spectrum between faith and ambition. You know, all of us fall somewhere along that spectrum, and a lot of us characters keep those feelings deeply hidden or disguised. So, every single character has his own story to tell, and the story, just everything fits together into this wonderful kind of suspense thriller plot, which has this astonishing surprise ending.”
He continued, “The ending to my story happens away about three-quarters of the way through the film. But to me, what’s fascinating for my character is, well, spoiler alert, he endures a great traumatic downfall, but he has to stick around because it’s a conclave. It’s sequestration. It’s like he has to stay in prison. He can’t just walk away in humiliation. He has to sit there among the College of Cardinals in humiliation. I thought that was an amazing story to tell in one character’s journey. One out of several. The terrible fall from great confidence, self-assurance, if not arrogance, and dreadful humiliation. That was my story. But there are about eight or nine concurrent stories that get told, all of them performed by these wonderful international actors.”
Conclave was directed by All Quiet on the Western Front’s Edward Berger from a screenplay written by Peter Straughan, based on Robert Harris’ best-selling novel. The film also stars Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Carlos Diehz, Lucian Msamati, Brían F. O’Byrne, Merab Ninidze, Sergio Castellitto, and Isabella Rossellini. It was executive produced by Steven Rales, Glen Basner, Alison Cohen, Milan Popelka, Ben Browning, Len Blavatnik, Danny Cohen, Zoe Edwards, Harry Dixon, Paul Randle, Tomas Alfredson, Edward Berger, Ralph Fiennes, Peter Straughan, Robyn Slovo, Mario Gianani, and Lorenzo Gangarossa.
