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With over 120 acting credits to his name, John Turturro has accrued a long list of what-ifs and missed opportunities, including a role as Madonna’s boyfriend.
Turturro joined Variety’s co-editor in chief Ramin Setoodeh
to chat in partnership with the Miami Film Festival and receive the Creative Vanguard Award. In this conversation, the seasoned actor recalled his memorable audition with the pop star in her early days for the 1985 comedic “Desperately Seeking Susan.”
“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.’”
Ultimately, he didn’t get the role as her fictional boyfriend — he played the comical club manager Ray instead — but he claimed her interest in him lasted long after their audition, but he preferred they stick to being friends.
“Because some people, you feel like maybe they want to absorb you and I didn’t want to be absorbed,” Turturro said. “I do like her; we’ve always gotten along, but because we didn’t get absorbed. I haven’t seen her in a long time because she was married to all these different guys. I’m married to one woman. One wife is enough. That’s my motto.”
Turturro’s extensive filmography means he has stories like this with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Martin Scorsese, Tom Cruise, Spike Lee, the Coen brothers, Adam Sandler, Zoë Kravitz and Meryl Streep, to name a few. Along with his slew of interesting stories, his vast career has granted him the freedom to choose which roles he agrees to and which he declines. For Turturro, big-budget franchises versus indie films or plays are two kinds of jobs that fulfill different needs: one gives him financial stability, the other gives him the opportunity to grow as an actor.
“[Franchises are] my electrical job, and my other kind of job is my plumbing job, so I consider myself a plumber and then I do some electrical work,” Turturro said.
He also revealed he was trusted with the decision of who would play his love interest in Apple TV’s hit series “Severance.” He chose longtime friend Christopher Walken.
“He’s actually underestimated,” Turturro said of Walken playing his romantic interest on the show. “People don’t realize the different things he can do. 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.”
It was helpful for Turturro to have a comrade on set because COVID-19 made the Season 1 shooting conditions less than ideal.
“With masks and shields, and in that office, it was easy to have a nervous breakdown in that place,” Turturro said. “I was like, ‘I got to get out of this place if it was the last thing I had to do.’”
While he is keeping his character Irving’s future in “Severance” under wraps, the actor was eager to discuss his latest starring role as Harry in “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” especially the film’s “beautiful” script.
“It had a radical gentleness, and so many things nowadays are just in your face,” Turturro said. “The news is in your face, sports are in your face, movies are in your face. I felt there was a humanity to the world, and also there’s an element of class in it that people are struggling to live. That’s what makes an interesting character: obstacles.”
Turturro’s portrayal of the complex character has begun to generate Oscar buzz for him — a nomination he has yet to receive in his decades-spanning career. But awards are not at the front of his mind when choosing which projects to participate in.
“This is a crazy lifestyle,” Turturro said. “Time becomes more precious as I get older. So, I want to know if I’m going to do something, what am I going to do? And is it something I want to do? And I don’t want to repeat myself. I want to add to whatever I created. I’m not interested in doing the same, singing the same song. Sometimes some singers have to always sing that hit song.”
