John Turturro recently opened up and shared fun tidbits from over the course of his long, illustrious career.
Helping Define A Generational Couple
Turturro sat down and got real comfortable with Variety’s co-editor in chief Ramin Setoodeh to chat in partnership with the Miami Film Festival and receive the Creative Vanguard Award. He’s been making the rounds promoting his latest project, “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” and had plenty of stories to share from his lengthy career.
The most interesting tidbit was the fact that Turturro (who plays Irving) was apparently so trusted, he was given the decision of who was cast as his love interest in Apple TV’s sci-fi, office thriller “Severance.” He picked wisely with his choice, his friend of many years, Christopher Walken (Irving’s forbidden love, Burt).
“He’s actually underestimated. People don’t realize the different things he can do,” Turturro gushed about his buddy. “He has a vulnerability to him and a delicacy that people sometimes think is strange, but he’s actually a delicate person and that was the reason I did the show.”
Burt and Irving ignited audiences and shippers everywhere with a single touch of the hand when the show came out in 2022. Who doesn’t love touch-starved, old man yaoi featuring two legendary actors that can emote the heck out of anything? Turturro also said that it was tremendously helpful for his mental health to have a close friend on set as the show was filming during peak COVID-19 years. Unsurprisingly, he felt anxious because the cast primarily filmed the first season in white, blank empty office spaces that invoked a liminal dread so horrifying he felt he had to “get out of this place if it was the last thing I had to do.” And of course, he didn’t reveal anything about his character’s season 3 fate.
Everything Else He Spilled
That wasn’t all the iconic actor opened up about; he’s auditioned and worked with so many people that he’s filled with random stories. The most amusing anecdote was about him being kissed by Madonna during an audition for “Desperately Seeking Susan.” The actor went down memory lane, detailing the unexpected intimacy of being smooched by a pop star.
“I auditioned for Madonna’s boyfriend. I didn’t know who Madonna was,” Turturro said. “She wasn’t that famous, and we had a kissing scene and she really kissed me. I mean, deeply. I was like, ‘I’ve never been kissed like that in an audition.’ I dropped all my sides, all my pages on the floor. I was like, ‘I thought this was an audition. I didn’t know it was this kind of movie.’”
The thought of Turturro dropping all of his pages on the floor like a cartoon character is amusing, to be fair. As history knows, he didn’t get the role of her character’s boyfriend, but he claims she was still trying to get with him even after the project was done. He says he denied her because he didn’t want to get “absorbed” by her, which is a fascinating and seemingly accurate way to describe the Queen of Pop.
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