If you've seen "The Batman," did you wonder where else you'd seen the actor who played
Carmine Falcone?
Keep watching for some of the many recognizable roles John Turturro has played.
Turturro caught director Spike Lee's eye with his performance in 1987's "Five Corners,"
so Lee cast him in his 1989 film "Do the Right Thing."
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Turturro said Lee sent him the script and asked which
part he wanted to play.
Turturro answered:
"I said I'd like to play the racist guy because I thought that's what it was about."
Set in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Brooklyn, "Do the Right Thing" explores
racial tensions between an Italian-American family running a pizzeria and their neighbors.
Lee himself plays pizza delivery guy Mookie and Turturro plays Pino, the racist son of
the pizzeria's owner.
In their key scene together, Pino names his favorite celebrities — who are all Black
— but then says…
"They're not Black.
I mean, let me explain myself.
They're not really Black.
They're Black, but they're not really Black."
Lee broke down the scene to Entertainment Weekly, pointing out that line as key:
"Pino, when he's talking, it's not based upon fiction.
... I've heard this argument where the most racist people, their favorite athlete, entertainer,
or comedian, is Black."
Lee admitted he was intimidated doing that scene, calling Turturro "a beast."
"Do the Right Thing" kicked off a long collaboration, with Turturro appearing in several more of
Spike Lee's movies, including "Jungle Fever," "Clockers," and "Mo' Better Blues."
John Turturro is only in "The Big Lebowski" for a few minutes, but he made a big impression
as bowling competitor The Jesus.
Dressed in a purple jumpsuit, Jesus Quintana does an elaborate ritual before he throws
his ball down the lane.
After getting a strike, he does a dance, insults Jeff Bridges' The Dude, and leaves.
It's a fever dream in slow motion.
The eccentric character was a collaboration between Turturro and Joel and Ethan Coen,
the brothers who wrote, directed, and produced the movie.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Turturro said The Jesus is inspired by a character
he portrayed in a play a decade earlier: He asked for the painted pinky nail and brought
the hair net.
Turturro said,
"When you only have five minutes, you've gotta put everything in.
I just kept trying to come up with things to make [the Coen brothers] laugh."
Turturro said the scene shocked even him.
He said,
"I didn't think they were going to use all of that and then when they showed me the cut
of it, I was embarrassed.
I was laughing, but I was embarrassed.
I was like, 'Oh god, I can't believe I did all those things.'"
That embarrassment didn't hold him back from bringing Jesus back for a sequel movie, "The
Jesus Rolls," which he wrote, directed, and starred in.
Turturro explained,
"Everything he does is a masterpiece in his own mind, despite the fact that everything
he does backfires."
Continuing his work with the Coen brothers, John Turturro starred in 2000's "O Brother,
Where Art Thou?"
alongside George Clooney and Tim Blake Nelson.
The three of them play escaped convicts in Depression-era Mississippi who embark on an
episodic journey to get back home.
The film is loosely based on Homer's "The Odyssey," with Clooney's Ulysses Everett McGill
taking the role of Odysseus.
Turturro's Pete and Nelson's Delmar are dimwitted, compared to Ulysses' cunning, but they follow
him in hopes of finding hidden treasure.
"O Brother, Where Art Thou?" is particularly known for its iconic soundtrack of old folk
songs, which become part of the story as the group finds radio fame as The Soggybottom
Boys.
Turturro said of working with the Coens,
"It's always a new world that they create and it's fun to fill that imaginary world
out.
It's never the same."
He also appeared in their movie "Miller's Crossing" as the bookie Bernie Bernbaum and
as the title playwright in the Coens' film "Barton Fink."
"Look in your heart!
I'm praying to you!
Look in your heart!
I'm praying to you!"
John Turturro hasn't done a lot of TV until recently, which is why his guest appearance
on "Monk" was both special and unusual.
Mr. Monk himself, Tony Shalhoub, asked Turturro to come on the show, since the two of them
are friends and had worked together before on "Barton Fink" and the play "Waiting for
Godot."
Turturro comes into the story in the Season 2 episode "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies," playing
Adrian Monk's brother, Ambrose.
Like Adrian, who's known for his obsessive compulsive disorder and long list of phobias,
Ambrose Monk has his own collection of fears and quirks.
He hasn't left their childhood house in over 30 years because of his severe agoraphobia.
That's not the reason the two of them are estranged, though.
They haven't talked in years because Ambrose blames himself for the death of Adrian's wife.
But when Ambrose thinks his neighbor killed someone, he calls Adrian to solve it, and
the two awkwardly reunite.
It's a favorite episode of Shalhoub's, as the strained relationship between the two
brothers reveals another side to his character.
Shalhoub told USA Today:
"He's more abrupt and less sympathetic.
It's a healthy thing to see that he's not a complete saint."
Turturro won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series and ended up coming
back for two more episodes: Season 4's "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again" and Season 7's "Mr.
Monk's 100th Case."
Before Turturro's second episode aired, Shalhoub praised him to The New York Times:
"Somehow in two episodes he's managed to take the character and make him a fully rounded,
complete part of the show."
In four "Transformers" movies, Turturro plays the antagonist-turned-ally Agent Seymour Simmons
of the government's secretive Sector Seven.
At the Montclair Film Festival, Turturro said he based his performance on the movie's director,
Michael Bay, as he's done with other directors and executive producers.
This role was a big departure from Turturro's usual independent movies, but he took the
job because of his son.
He told The Independent,
"I never did any of those kind of movies 'till my kids asked me to, then they kept asking
me to do it.
I didn't do it for a paycheck.
I had fun, tried to get into the spirit of it.
It's more of a sketch of a person than an oil painting."
He says he prefers "medium-sized films" to the big budget ones, although he said those
roles have become harder to find.
He told Variety,
"Now there are no medium-sized films.
There are small films or giant films.
Thank god for television."
Now, Turturro is back with one of the biggest films in recent memory, "The Batman."
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