John Lithgow Debuts Insane Rudy Giuliani Impression on ‘Colbert’
The Emmy and Tony-winning actor is giving SNL’s Kate McKinnon a run for her money.
Scott Kowalchyk/CBS
Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon has some fierce new competition in the political impression department from none other than Emmy and Tony-winning actor John Lithgow.
Lithgow has already played Bill Clinton on Broadway, Winston Churchill on The Crown (and told me he wants to play Donald Trump on the show next). Soon he will appear as the late Fox News founder Roger Ailes in the upcoming film Bombshell. But on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Tuesday night, he debuted his Rudy Giuliani. And it was something to behold.
After Colbert played a montage of the real Giuliani “doing damage control, minus the control” on cable news and gave a breakdown of just how bad things have been going for the president’s personal lawyer, Lithgow appeared “via satellite” in full-on Rudy makeup to tell his side of the story.
Before the host could get out a question, Giuliani started shushing him. “Mr. Mayor, how do you respond to critics who say that you were traveling the world pushing debunked conspiracies as part of a scheme to help the president’s re-election?” Colbert asked when he could finally get a word in.
“That’s ridiculous, Stephen!” Giuliani replied. “I was simply bringing the American people the truth about the Bidens! And that’s not all. I now have reason to believe that the 2016 election was not hacked by the Russians, it was hacked by Hunter Biden, who is actually a Men in Black-style alien, being operated by a tiny Hillary Clinton in his neck.” Asked if he has “proof” for that claim, he added, “Not yet! Or ever. I’m not falling into the proof trap!”
As the interview progressed, Giuliani started to chug red wine on camera as he defended himself against accusations from former National Security Adviser John Bolton that he was like a “hand grenade” that would blow up the whole administration. “Stephen, that’s crazy,” he said. “Grenades are used by highly-trained soldiers. I’m more like a can of hairspray someone turns into a flamethrower during a prison riot. That’s also what happened to my teeth.”
From there, he began listing off all of the players in his conspiracy theories: “The deep state, Podesta, George Soros.” Before taking another sip of wine, he said, “Let me consult my research department” and added, “The lizard people, Bigfoot, the Chupacabra.”
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Finally, Giuliani announced his “counter-counter” investigation into the counterintelligence probe into him. “I’ve teamed with a new Bulgarian company, ‘Certified Rip-Off,’” he revealed. “They’re going to fund my space expedition to get to the bottom of Hunter Biden’s business deal with the Nazis in the center of the moon!”
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