The movie that wasted a year of John Lithgow’s life: “I had never been fired until then”
No actor wants to have their time wasted, especially when they’ve dedicated a lot of their time to a project and turned down other offers in the meantime, so John Lithgow had every reason to be indignant when he was handed his marching orders out of the blue.
He’s probably much too nice of a guy to react in such a manner, though, even if he would have been well within his rights to do so. After all, he’s been steadily employed across stage and screen since the early 1970s, and he ended up wasting a year of his time on a performance nobody ever got to see.
Lithgow has remained hugely in demand by being very good at his job and earning his status as one of the most dependable and acclaimed character actors of all time. He’s got two Academy Award nominations, six Primetime Emmys, two Golden Globes, and a pair of Tonys to show for it, but there wasn’t much he could do when it was decided his services were no longer required.
He wasn’t even the first choice for the part, either, which must have stung even more. Ever since Robin Williams’ legendary turn in Aladdin, Disney had pivoted away from voice actors and into the realm of celebrity when it came to populating the recording booth on its animated features.
Directors John Musker and Ron Clements already had Danny DeVito signed to play Phil in Hercules, but they were struggling to find a suitable Hades. The diminutive star suggested his old friend Jack Nicholson, who was offered $500,000 to bring the villain and ruler of the underworld to life.
Nicholson’s counter-offer was at least $10million and 50% of all Hades-branded merchandise, so it was never going to happen. Lithgow was hired in 1994 and ultimately released from his contract in August 1995, with James Woods drafted in two months later to ensure that the third time was the charm for Hercules.
“Disney hired me, I did the entire voice, and after working on it for a year they decided, ‘No, wrong voice’, and replaced me with Jimmy Woods,” he admitted to WFAA, which was a first-time experience. “I try to be a good friend to all my actor friends whenever anyone gets fired. It’s terrible, but every one of us gets fired sometime. Well, in fact, I had never been fired until then.”
Woods was good value hamming it up as Hades, but Lithgow didn’t have to wait too long until he found a voice role befitting his talents. The actor lent his dulcet tones to the villainous Lord Farquaad in Shrek just four years after Hercules hit cinemas, so his initial loss turned out to be a major gain in the long run when it became one of the most popular animated flicks of the 21st century.
