John Turturro unfolds himself from his perch in our interview space and stands erect. He’s excited. “A lot of it is distraction,” he says as he makes subtle movements against his pants. “You can also ‘reef the kick’ — you play your fingers like a piano, pushing whatever it is until it’s sticking out just far enough to clip.” A few more gestures and he slowly maneuvers his wallet up and out of his pocket with a smile.
Yes, John Turturro, beloved actor and filmmaker, has at age 69 mastered a new life skill, ostensibly for his acclaimed new independent film, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. The project is earning some career-best reviews and has him in the mix of Best Actor contenders, well positioned to earn his first Oscar nomination.
“I pickpocketed a lot of people,” he tells us. “The crew, people in the production office, on trains.” Asked if he returned the lifted items, he smiles again. “I can’t talk about that now…”
The clicking clock
Turturro had been looking for a film project, when his agent, Christina Bazdekis flagged a screenplay by Noah Segan. An actor known for his roles in Rian Johnson movies, Segan also dabbled in writing and directing. The Only Living Pickpocket — part character study, part homage to 1970s heist films, part love letter to New York — checked all the boxes for Turturro. The story follows aging thief and technophobe Harry Lehman, who works the streets and subways of New York and uses his ill-gotten gains to take care of his catatonic wife, Rosie. He winds up lifting something from the wrong person — the son of a mob boss — and is given a deadline to return it… or else Rosie will suffer.
“You read a lot of scripts and a lot of scripts are really derivative — really violent, asking you to do the same thing you’ve done variations of,” the actor explains. “I like Greek plays. I like the Aristotelian rules of drama, the 24-hour clock. This had 36 hours. So it had this crime-thriller tension, this propulsion of a guy against the clock, juxtaposed with the delicate tenderness of caring for someone.
“The world has changed and the world around him has changed. He’s almost out of time — figuratively, metaphorically.”
Finding Harry
Turturro began researching the history and sociology of pickpockets and finding points of connection with Harry. “I used to always make lists when I was younger — what I had in common with a character, what I didn’t,” Turturro says.
“I’m a certain age, and I’m surrounded by a lot of ghosts — people who aren’t there. I’ve been a son and a husband and a father, and you stumble in all of those things. You have regrets and accomplishments and failures, and you have a lot to draw on as a person.”
While he’s no Luddite, Turturro also shares something else in common with his screen alter ego: “I sometimes have a disdain for technology because I feel like it’s at the expense of fellow human interchange. That’s what makes the world beautiful. And now it’s like a speeding train for everybody.”
Assembling the crew
After agreeing to the role and breaking the character, Turturro got on the phone to recruit some old friends: Big Lebowski bowling rival Steve Buscemi and Do the Right Thing sparring partner Giancarlo Esposito. “I went out to Giancarlo and Steve at the same time. They’re wonderful actors, and I would support them if the shoe was on the other foot.
“They bring a fabric to it and we have a history between us. We enjoy each others’ company, and that’s a wonderful thing.”
Tatiana Maslany (“she’s just amazing; I’ve worked with her twice since then and I’m gobsmacked”) and Jamie Lee Curtis (“a delight”) also came aboard to fill out the cast.
New York state of mind
Production ramped up — the crew only had a few weeks to shoot, and everything was done on location. “It’s really about people who sort of keep the city humming — the unsung heroes,” the actor says.
An unapologetic New Yorker who was a fixture at Knicks games during their championship run and has a documentary in the works about legendary Yankees manager Joe Torre, Turturro is proud the film shot in his backyard.
“It’s an odyssey. Basically it’s a 36-hour journey, and he knows the transit system. I know it, but not as well as Harry,” he explains. “You’re seeing someone on the trains, on foot, navigating all these different neighborhoods — there are all these new ethnic enclaves. We shot in all five boroughs and it was invigorating.
“The pawnshop was a real pawnshop, run by two ladies behind bulletproof glass, and people were still coming in while we were shooting. We said, ‘It’s closed.’ When we broke the door [for a scene], they said, ‘What happened?'”
The art of the steal
That brings us to Turturro’s newfound talent. To make a film about a pickpocket he knew he had to convince viewers — and himself — that he was legit. So he went a little Method.
“I stumbled onto a profile of Apollo Robbins — a magician and real pickpocket — in The New Yorker. He helped crystallize the character and gave me a lot of exercises.” That included the aforementioned targeting of crew members. He also ventured into the wild, but stopped short of actual larceny. “I would scout it [on a train], put my hand near something, and just know I could go from here to there,” he says mimicking lifting a purse.
“The thing is, you’re not actually pulling something out. If you lean into someone and they shift, they think it’s gone. You haven’t even taken it out yet. It’s about how delicate and graceful your hand is, and how you distract the person.”
“Even in scenes where you didn’t see me do it, I told Noah I still wanted to do it — so when I walked away, I walked away a little differently.”
And if awards season breaks right, he could be walking away with some high-profile nominations.
Regardless, Turturro says that The Only Living Pickpocket has had a profound effect on him.
“I feel like I’m an investigator — an investigative reporter. It’s kind of thrilling to think: I’m learning all these things,” he says. “You’re learning about humanity and what someone does. If you’re a scientist, you think a certain way. If you’re a pickpocket, you dream about pockets.”
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is in theaters.
