John Lithgow poses with the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play award for ‘Giant’ during the 79th Annual Tony Awards in New York City, US, June 7, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Angelina Katsanis

John Lithgow made history at the 2026 Tony Awards on Sunday night when he won Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play for his portrayal of renowned children’s author Roald Dahl in “Giant,” which highlights the British writer’s history of antisemitic comments.

Lithgow is now the oldest male actor to win a Tony in a competitive acting category at the age of 80. The record was previously set by Roy Dotrice at the age of 77 when he won the award in 2000 for Best Featured Actor in a Play for “A Moon for the Misbegotten.” Dotrice died in 2017 at age 94.

In “Giant,” Lithgow plays Dahl in the 1980s, when the British author faced backlash and a hit to his reputation after making antisemitic comments. The late author, who died in 1990 at the age of 74, published children’s classics such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “The BFG,” “Matilda,” “James and the Giant Peach,” “Fantastic Mr Fox,” and “The Witches.” In 2020, Dahl’s family issued a statement apologizing for his antisemitic remarks.

“Giant” premiered in London in 2024 and won three Laurence Olivier Awards, including Best New Play and Best Actor for Lithgow. It ends its run on Broadway on June 28 and is directed by two-time Tony winner Nicholas Hytner and written by Mark Rosenblatt. “Giant” is Rosenblatt’s first play.

“Antisemitism, cruelty of all kinds, hatred of the other – these are things that we’re dealing with these days, up front and personal,” Lithgow told reporters after his Tony win on Sunday. “That’s what makes ‘Giant’ so important and such a success.”

Lithgow said during a recent appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” that “Giant” is “a deep dive into Ronald and English antisemitism” and “a rumination on bigotry and cruelty.” The Tony, Golden Globe, and Olivier Award-winner also described Rohl as both “charming and monstrous.”

Others nominated at the Tony Awards this year for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play included Will Harrison, Nathan Lane, Daniel Radcliffe, and Mark Strong.

In his acceptance speech at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Sunday night, Lithgow described “Giant” as an “extraordinary play” that was “made by people full of love and kindness.”

“But it’s a play about cruelty in a cruel age,” added the now three-time Tony winner. “And it’s an extraordinarily important play of this moment.”

Lithgow also talked about winning his first Tony Award 53 years ago for his Broadway debut in “The Changing Room,” which originated at London’s Royal Court Theatre, just like “Giant.”

“Two Tony bookends, with 53 years between them,” Lithgow said. “In those years, I have worked with hundreds of fantastic theater artists. I’ve had dozens and dozens of ecstatic moments onstage. But I have to tell you, this moment has got to be one of the best.”

Lithgow, who won his second Tony for “Sweet Smell of Success” in 2002, said during this year’s edition of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Tonys Roundtable that “Giant” will be his last Broadway show.

Dahl made several antisemitic comments over the course of his life.

“There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews,” he said in a 1983 interview with Britain’s New Statesman magazine, adding that “even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”

Months before Dahl died, he told The Independent that Jewish publishers “control the media” and said, “I’m certainly anti-Israeli and I’ve become antisemitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism.”

In a review on a book about the Lebanon War that appeared in the August 1983 edition of the British periodical Literary Review, Dahl said of Jewish people: “Never before in the history of man has a race of people switched so rapidly from being much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers.”