admin When you meet John Turturro in person for the first time, it’s hard to keep your mind from cycling through a dozen characters he’s played over the years. When I show up at the Midtown salon where he gets his hair cut, Turturro’s holding a white porcelain coffee cup in one hand and the matching saucer in the other. I think of Detective Larry Mazilli from Clockers, Joey Knish from Rounders, and the Shamata Kid from Miller’s Crossing. But no—I land on Philip Roth’s hornball anti-hero, Mickey Sabbath, the character Turturro will turn into a few hours from now on stage in Sabbath’s Theater, the lauded adaptation of Roth’s 1995 novel that Turturro co-created with writer Ariel Levy.
It isn’t for any reason besides the sneakers. Blue New Balance 990s. Turturro wears them when he plays Roth’s pervert. It’s a good choice of footwear for the part, since most over-60 guys you see puttering around the Upper West Side also tend to favor the brand, for reasons I’ve never quite been able to figure out. Turturro is also wearing them when we meet. Does he just like to walk in Mickey Sabbath’s shoes everywhere he goes? Is it some sort of acting thing I can’t understand?
“I usually wear work boots, but it’s a pain to take them off and these are comfortable, so I wear them to the theater,” he says.
It’s apt that he prefers work boots because I can’t think of many actors who have worked as much and at the level Turturro has for over the last four decades. His first film role was a small part in Raging Bull that doesn’t get a name in the credits, but from there, the Brooklyn-born, Queens-raised actor has done everything from similarly small parts in other classics (“Writer” in Hannah and Her Sisters, the M.C. at a seedy uptown magic club in Desperately Seeking Susan), to lead roles in Best Picture nominees (Quiz Show), to his various roles in some of the best work the Coen brothers and Spike Lee have made throughout their own decorated careers. His long list of television roles includes one that netted him an Emmy (for playing Tony Shalhoub’s brother very convincingly on Monk) and another Roth character (a sycophant rabbi in The Plot Against America.) More recently, he won even more praise as Irving Bailiff on Severance.
When or if we’ll see what happens next with Irving and the rest of the mind-wiped Lumon Industries employees is an open question; even before the strike shut down all production, there were rumors of behind-the-scenes issues between showrunners Dan Erickson and Mark Friedman, as well as worries about production costs, and the general anxiety that comes with following up a successful first season. But Turturro isn’t concerned. “I’ve done my second season,” he says as we walk out of the salon. “They have to go back and finish it. I can do whatever I want to, go back or not or whatever.”
