John Lithgow talks upcoming role as Albus Dumbledore in 'Harry Potter' series

John Lithgow isn’t worried about the upcoming lengthy job of playing Albus Dumbledore in the upcoming Harry Potter TV series from HBO.

During an appearance on the Smartless podcast, the 79-year-old actor said he thinks the job won’t be "that hard."

Lithgow admitted that he’s only now reading the books written by J.K Rowling and is on the second installment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

He told hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett, “The overall concept of this entire reboot of Harry Potter is an entire season is devoted to a single novel.”

When asked how long he thinks he’ll be in London for the filming, he replied: "I honestly don't know. I mean, I was over in England for eight months for The Crown and barely came back [to the U.S.]. I think I may have come back once or twice. I imagine that I can come back much more [on this]."

Lithgow added, "You know, Dumbledore is — he's kind of the nuclear weapon. He only goes on very, very occasionally. And I think that — I don't think it's gonna be that hard a job, and, we'll just go back and forth."

The Conclave actor also shared his surprise that fans have been stopping and asking him about the reboot so soon after the announcement that he’ll play the Hogwarts headmaster.

"Can you believe this has already started?" John Lithgow said. "The deal was only set, like, forty-eight hours ago, and in airports two weeks ago, somehow or other, people had gotten wind of this, and they were stopping me."