John Lithgow is back in the Tony race with a role that fits him neatly and may yet give him another prize. In Giant, he portrays Roald Dahl, the children’s author whose work became beloved around the world even as his darker side shadowed his legacy.
The timing matters because the 79th Tony Awards were set for Sunday, June 7, and Lithgow was being talked about as one of the frontrunners for best actor in a play. If he wins for Giant, it would be his third Tony and mark his 25th Broadway show, another milestone in a stage career that has stretched across decades.
Lithgow was part of a late-May roundtable in PMC’s New York headquarters that gathered six performers from the 2025-26 Broadway season who were headed toward the ceremony. The conversation put him alongside other major names in the race, including Nathan Lane, who is drawing notices for his turn as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, as well as Joshua Henry, Shoshana Bean, Rose Byrne and Marla Mindelle.
That context helps explain why Lithgow’s name kept coming up. He is not a newcomer hoping for a first taste of Broadway recognition. He is a past winner, a veteran who has already collected Tony Awards and now finds himself once again in position to add to that tally. Giant gives him the kind of role that can still move the needle late in a career: a demanding part in a play about a famous figure whose public image was more complicated than the stories that made him famous.
Still, the race is the story. Lithgow is being cast as a favorite, but the award itself had not yet been handed out, leaving the one question that matters to the ending of this moment unanswered until the ceremony itself. The prize could be his, but the Tony was still waiting to be decided when Broadway’s biggest night arrived.
