The IMDB on you, it's weighty.
It's weighty, well-- It's long!
I have to make a living,
y'know? Many, many, many pages.
Of all of these roles, do you have some that are
more memorable, or favorites, or more challenging?
I was in a movie once which, I was involved, I did
Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing with the Coen Brothers,
and then this great Italian director.
(audience claps)
Francesco Rosi, saw me, and he offered me the lead
in this Primo Levi book called The Truce (La Tregua),
which is about his journey home from Auschwitz
and all the way back to Turino.
It's about coming back to life, it was a beautiful movie,
I was involved with it for five years.
Little by little, I had to be very thin, and I was
really thin for a long time. Many years, oh, a survivor.
I was really thin for a long time,
and then there were people who thought I was,
this was before I actually made the movie, thought I was
sick, it was in the-- You were sick or dying--
That I was dying, yes-- Oh, no!
And some English rag newspaper
got my mother's phone number.
They called your mother?
And called my mother, said hello, Mrs. Turturro,
this is so-and-so, Nigel, from the whatever,
and we hear your son is dying of a brain tumor.
(gasps) Oh, my god!
True story, so my mother, being the
Sicilian woman that-- My mother's a Sicilian
woman, I feel this. Okay, okay.
So, my mother said, okay? Oh, my god!
So my mother said, she's not, she's not anymore here,
but she's still here, Kitty, her name was.
She said, what did you say? Oh!
What did you say?
She said, first of all, if my son had a brain tumor,
she said, I would know about it.
Of course!
She said, and probably the New York Times,
I'd be talking to, not you. It's not you!
You know what I mean? (audience laughs)
And then she's, y'know. (audience claps)
That's just like Elsa, my mother.
And she really ripped him apart, but anyway,
that's a film that I was very proud of,
and I wouldn't have gotten that opportunity, obviously,
if I hadn't worked with Joel and Ethan.
I've done four movies with them, The Big Lebowski,
Oh, Brother-- The Big Lebowski,
you are everything in that jumpsuit.
(audience claps)
I'm everything, that's so cute.
Well, it was
embarrassing to be-- That jumpsuit is everything!
I was very thin, because
it was after the movie-- Yes, we know! (laughs)
I just talked about-- Yes, yes!
No, it was after the movie that
I just talked about-- Yeah!
So, I was still thin. Yeah, so you were goin' in
there pretty fit!
They did make me, I have to say, I was quite embarrassed,
they wanted to make me well-endowed in the film.
(audience laughs)
And I had very
tight jeans on-- They wanted you to
Tom Jones it. Yeah.
Yeah! (laughs)
So, I had to go from door to door, there's a flashback,
cause he's a pederast, or whatever,
and, this is a true story, when I was walking
down the street, and I was so embarrassed,
and I'm walking down the street like, Jesus, like this.
(audience claps)
You know, right?
That's how you
developed the character! No, no, no!
And so, a car stopped, this is true,
a car went (vocalizes) like that, and I was like,
oh my god, I was so embarrassed, they were dying laughing.
But a lot of the things I did in that movie, I had done
a character on stage, it's actually based on
someone that I met, actually-- Wow!
And of course, this film has become,
it's part of our-- It's iconic, yeah!
I've watched it-- It's the zeitgeist.
At least 40 times, it really is.
Yeah, it's a philosophical comedy.
It's fabulous!
And when it came out, it went over so many people's heads.
They were just like, huh?
And people come up to me, and I've gotten letters,
sex letters, from women, men-- Well, of course!
That I, you know, what can you do for me?
(audience laughs)
I like how you bowl,
and all these things. Oh, my god!
I'm like, oh, my god, I can't.
But it's hard to say what's my favorite, or whatever.
And then, I've done a lot of things with Spike,
I've done-- I love Spike.
So many movies, but one of my favorite things I did
with Spike, again, everyone always talks about
Do the Right Thing,
was Jungle Fever-- Oh, Jungle Fever's great!
It was the opposite of what I did,
and it had a lot of my own growing up in that.
Spike and I are three weeks apart,
we were born in the same year.
I grew up in a Black neighborhood, he grew up
in an Italian neighborhood, and we've had
an over-30-year friendship, and he's a dear friend.
I was gonna say, that makes you guys bonded
in a cool way. Yeah, yeah,
we have a whole-- A whole thing.
Shorthand, you know.
(audience cheers)