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Conclave's John Lithgow on Playing Another Man of the Cloth, 40 Years After Footloose
The director and actor reflect on the paths that led them to the critically lauded Conclave.
Directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) and starring Ralph Fiennes (Schindler's List) as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, Focus Feature's Conclave pulls audiences into the rarified world of the Vatican and the inner most sanctum of the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. In the wake of the pope's unexpected death, the College of Cardinals are summoned from around the world for the titular conclave, to secretively elect a successor.
An adaptation of author Robert Harris' 2016 novel of the same name, Conclave pulls back the curtain on the ancient and archaic rituals of the conclave, while also shining a light on man's eternal corruptibility in the pursuit of power. A true ensemble piece, Berger has stacked his film with an incredible troupe of actors from around the world, including Stanley Tucci, Sergio Castellitto, Lucian Msamati, Isabella Rossellini, and John Lithgow.
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Attached to play Cardinal Tremblay for several years before it finally went into production, Lithgow told NBC Insider that the end result feels like a throwback to films in the vein of the 1966 adaptation of A Man for All Seasons. "It feels revolutionary, even though it's very old fashioned," the actor explained. "It's rare that you say that about a film you're in, but it's like the good old days. It's so captivating and it's about so much. And it resonates so much with our historical moment, even though it's about this very esoteric, hidden and misunderstood cabal of secret people."
John Lithgow's long journey back to playing a man of God in Conclave
A working actor in stage, screen, and television for five decades, Lithgow built his stellar thespian reputation choosing to do character pieces much like Conclave. With Cardinal Tremblay, Lithgow gets to embody an enigmatic man who engages in a murky game of cat and mouse with Cardinal Lawrence. The role fits him like a second skin, and Lithgow said it's a recent favorite.
"The roles that I've been most delighted with and most proud of, I've had this strong sense that nobody else can play this part better than I can," the actor shared. "Like, I'm playing Roald Dahl right now in a brand new play in London, and I'm convinced there is nobody else who can play this part, because I look just like him... to my great dismay. A big, ungainly guy with a lantern jaw.
"And I felt that way about Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp and about Dick Solomon in Third Rock from the Sun and about the Trinity killer [in Dexter]. It's like nobody can touch me in this role and that's a really good feeling. Whenever I played any other role, I've basically been miscast," Lithgow joked.
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Tremblay also represents only the second time Lithgow has played a man of the cloth. Forty years ago, the actor landed a huge hit with Footloose playing Reverend Shaw Moore, whose edict for no dancing inspired a teen rebellion led by Kevin Bacon. While initially shocked by the realization of the span between his diverse men of God, Lithgow is clear about how the two men connect and diverge.
"The challenge in both cases was I'm a fairly irreligious man myself," he shared. "Since I was a kid and moving from town to town and just trying to fit in, I've never embraced organized religion, except in my own personal morality and rules to live by. So, in each [role], I had to simply try to embrace the lives that these two men have chosen.
"In the case of Footloose, I literally went sort of undercover and sought spiritual counsel from a minister from the Assembly of God in Utah just to hear a man talking from the heart about his beliefs," he continued. "It was very important to me to hear someone who truly believed what I was pretending to believe. And that was far less true of Tremblay, because his character doesn't plumb the depths of a spiritual crisis the way Ralph's character does. Tremblay is a kind of the workhorse of the College of Cardinals. He's an administrator, and he takes care of the finances and the logistics. He's a man of the cloth and we presume, a deeply devoted and faithful servant. But he has a strain of ambition, as almost all of the major figures do with either a strong, or a nearly undetectable strain of ambition. And that's one of the fascinating themes of this film, the conflict between faith and ambition."
How director Edward Berger's television work prepared him for Conclave
An award-winning director based in Germany, Berger's reputation grew exponentially after winning three BAFTA awards and the 2022 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film for directing All Quiet on the Western Front.
However, if you're a fan of character-driven television dramas, it might surprise you to know that Berger also has a stellar track record for launching prestige series the likes of The Terror, Patrick Melrose, and Your Honor. Seeping himself in character-driven storytelling is what prepared him for Conclave.
"The Terror was my first English language job," Berger shared with NBC Insider. "I read it, and I thought, 'Oh, my God, I'm scared of this. I have no idea how to do it. It's so complicated to shoot. It feels so big. How do I make this happen?' So, I tried to put all my fears aside and said, 'Okay, I'm just gonna treat it as a normal story and create one shot at a time.' I learned that from The Terror, and that kind of got me through everything else that followed.
"With Your Honor, or Patrick Melrose, and All Quiet, I always wanted to take the audience on a personal ride, so it takes them by their hand, puts them in the main character's shoes and puts them through the ringer with that character," Berger continued. "The journey in Conclave is kind of Ralph's journey, and I really wanted the audience to feel what he feels at any given moment. To really see the world of the Vatican, of this mysterious, corrupt, political election through his eyes and ears. I really wanted to witness his paranoia and all the weight that is on his shoulders. I wanted you to feel that, hopefully."
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Berger said he was drawn to the story because of its central questions pertaining to certainty versus doubt, best personified in the story by Fiennes' Cardinal Lawrence, the Dean of the College of Cardinals. As the priest assigned to carry out the vote, he struggles with his own crisis of faith. "The reason Ralph and I made this film is because we both found Cardinal Lawrence's inner journey to be so interesting and to be so compelling," Berger said. "I really do believe, even if you pretend to be certain, there's going to be a core of doubt within you at some point in your life.
"And where Lawrence struggles with knowing the right path, many of his fellow Cardinals are only interested in the power they can gain by heading the church. It very much deals with the political fractionization of today's lives and all the conflicts that we see on the news and feel in our lives every day," Berger said. "All of that was supposed to find its way into this film. It needed to feel like today, while I was really interested in finding out how does this work? What do they do? Why do they do it? What does it represent? And how do we film it?"
Conclave is exclusively in theaters now. Get your tickets!
