🎧 John Turturro May Want to Have Lunch With You

If you spot John Turturro having lunch at his go-to spot in Manhattan’s West Village, keep a close eye on who he’s having lunch with — you might be watching his next great role being born. 

“It’s a good way to get to know someone,” Turturro says. “You see what they order, see if they have a three-hour lunch. That’s the way to do it.”

That’s how it worked, at least, with Noah Segan, the writer and director of Turturro’s new film The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Also an actor — you’ve seen him play three different roles in the Knives Out franchise, part of his longtime collaboration with his friend Rian Johnson — Segan had directed only one feature before stepping behind the camera for Only Living Pickpocket. But he led the shoot with the confidence of an old hand, especially with Turturro in nearly every frame. On his home turf, shooting all over New York City, the Brooklyn-born Turturro plays an experienced pickpocket facing down the ways technology is ending his way of life — nobody carries cash anymore! — but also old familial wounds and a heap of trouble when he picks the wrong, well-connected pocket. 

On today’s episode, Turturro, 69, says Segan’s script drew him in with its tight structure — taking place over just 36 hours, or what Turturro calls “Aristotelian time.” That idea of time, he continues, carries over to much of the film’s bigger theme. “It’s the whole idea of a person for whom time has changed everything,” Turturro tells me. “Personally, professionally, the technological — it’s not the world that he knew, and he doesn’t really want to understand it in some ways.”

Only Living Pickpocket takes place in a changing New York City of extreme wealth, but it’s still a place Turturro knows well — he lives in Brooklyn’s Park Slope — and can use to his advantage while filming on location. When a horn honk interrupts a take, for example, “You gotta incorporate it. If someone says something to me, I’ll go like, ‘That’s one of my neighbors.’” It’s a little harder when people whip out their phones and start filming, he continues, “but most people aren’t that way. This is the world, we’re on the street, and life is going on.” 

Hear more from Turturro on today’s episode of the podcast, including how he recruited old friends like Giancarlo Esposito and Steve Buscemi to be part of the film and how he prepared for his barnburner scene with Tatiana Maslany, who plays his character’s estranged daughter. (“It was really in real time that it happened,” he tells me of Maslany’s brief but powerful appearance. “It’s really miraculous.”) 

The episode also includes our final deep dive on the acting races, with Filmmaker Magazine contributor Tyler Coates joining Christopher Rosen and me to look at the best supporting actress field, which we all agree is led by Anne Hathaway for The Odyssey and Penélope Cruz for The Invite — or is it Penélope Cruz for La Bola Negra? Turns out that’s not the only point of confusion in a race that feels rich with possibilities right now.