John Lithgow: What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy?

The question

What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

John Lithgow

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Probably the curtain call of my final performance when I played King Lear.

Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, October 2024 source ↗

Others on this question

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Marina Diamandis

My late 20s, writing my third record.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 June 2025 source ↗

Andy Roddick American tennis player

Nothing is better than right now, and having a baby is no small part.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 June 2015 source ↗

Ranulph Fiennes English explorer

In 1982, having travelled for three years to do the first journey around the earth on its polar axis. Charles Burton and I were trying to get from the north pole down to our ship on the edge of the Arctic Sea. We had to float for three months on a diminishing ice floe. Eventually we had to leave the floe and try to get to the ship in canoes with skis under them. In the maze of broken ice we saw its masts on the horizon. That second was probably my happiest moment.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 May 2008 source ↗

Danielle Steel Novelist