Actor John Lithgow slammed Donald Trump’s presidency as a “pure disaster” for the arts and compared him to the coronavirus for its destructive force.
Lithgow made his comments after winning a best actor nod at the Olivier Awards in London on Saturday, and he was particularly upset over the president’s take-over of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC, according to Variety.
“Our administration has done some shocking, destructive things, but the one that grieves me most is taking over the Kennedy Center,” Lithgow said.
“Deborah Rutter was fired from her position as president – even though she’d already resigned and had [several] months to go. She’s a very good friend of mine. We co-chaired a commission on the arts and spent three years finding out the state of the arts in America [was] in crisis. Well, it’s really in crisis now,” he exclaimed.
“First there was coronavirus, now there’s this,” he added, before claiming that the status of the arts in the U.S. is a “pure disaster” and “really disheartening.”
“Right now, everybody is in shock,” he said. But he then insisted that “bad times create good art.”
Donald Trump announced in February that he intended to take over the center, and then he made himself the chairman of the organization Since that time, a grow list of artists have cancelled their shows at the center rather than perform at the theater under Trump’s control.
Lithgow will be engaging in an extended stay in the U.K. when he begins filming the newest Harry Potter series which will begin production in Hertfordshire, UK, this summer. Lithgow has been tapped to join the cast as the latest to play J. K. Rowling’s sage wizard, Albus Dumbledore.
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