John Lithgow: Doting Father

Some actors are known for their variety. Alfred Hitchcock, Marlon Brando, and Leonardo DiCaprio (yes, I did) all have this in common, Variety. They star in completely different movies as completely different character for decades. Even when some actors repeatedly play characters with something in common (Joaquin Phoenix’s character descriptions must include on word: troubled), they can still be stunningly different from one another (from a troubled country musician in the mid-twentieth century to a troubled World War II veteran fighting PTSD to a troubled photographer who attempts suicide in the first scene of the movie). I guess that also classifies as variety. Some actors, though, they’re one-note. Not one-hit, one-note. They can be in several good or bad movies for decades, while still playing the almost exact same character. Classic example: John Lithgow.
I love John Lithgow. Not a Leonardo DiCaprio love, but a I’ve-grown-up-watching-him-and-he-hasn’t-done-anything-stupid-so-he’s-pretty-cool-I-guess love. He’s a good actor, but I’ve only seen him as one guy: the doting (sometimes dorky, sometimes over-protective, always doting) father.
In 1984, Lithgow began his reign as such in the original Footloose. As the reverend of a small town stern father (doting, over-protective) against dancing and rock music. It’s a good movie and just the beginning for the actor.
Just this past week, I watched Harry and the Hendersons (1987) with some kids I babysit. It tells the story of a father (doting, dorky) who changes his see-animal-kill-animal ways after discovering Bigfoot. It’s definitely an eighties movie.
Let's move on to television for a little bit. Between the years 1996-2001, John Lithgow starred in 3^rd Rock from the Sun, a series about extraterrestrial creatures traveling in space (or something. I've never watched the show and am too lazy to read a synopsis). Although older than the other characters in the main cast, he was actually younger than them, often getting into trouble that everyone had to work together to solve. (Yup. Never watched it.) Definitely dorky, doting, sort-of father.
After a brief stint in movies, again, as the doting father of Amy Adams in 2010's Leap Year, John Lithgow returned to television with How I Met You Mother. Do I have to say it? He was doting and dorky, okay? He was the doting, dorky father of playboy Barney Stinson.
I mean, it's not like this is especially bad (and he did actually play a cop once). He'll still get hired because people will still need this type of character in their movies, which is fine.
I was once told that, if someone plays a stupid character on TV, chances are they're stupid in real-life, too. Now, I'm not sure I can exactly agree with that; maybe sometimes, but not always. People probably think that this correlation of “character equals actor” is always true because that's the only way they know the actor, from their film/television work (as I think about it now, the one word that comes to my head about the actor Joaquin Phoenix is “troubled”, which is probably because of his role choices. Or maybe because of the alcoholism and incoherent interviews.) But now that I've watched so many of these John Lithgow films, that's what I think of him as: a doting (sometimes dorky, sometimes over-protective, always doting) father. Is that really a bad thing?