John Turturro could pick your pocket (if he wanted to)

0:00John Turturro: This message comes from NPR sponsor, the official Gilded Age podcast from HBO. Unpack each episode of the Gilded Age and hear from the people who bring 19th century New York to life. Watch the official Gilded Age podcast on HBO Max or listen wherever you get podcasts. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest John Turturro stars in a new movie that I'll tell you about in a minute. He's been riveting ever since the early years of his career, like in the film Five Corners, in which his character is totally unhinged and throws his mother out the window. And in the Coen brothers' film Miller's Crossing, as a bookie who's skimmed money from a gangster and is begging for his life as he's about to be executed in the woods.

0:43John Turturro: He was also in the Coen Brothers films Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother Where Art Thou. He was convincing as a racist in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing and was also in Lee's films Jungle Fever, Mo' Better Blues, and Clockers. Skipping ahead to the recent past, he's given great performances in the HBO series The Night Of and The Plot Against America, and he's in the Apple TV series Severance. Now he stars in the new film The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. He loves playing people who are morally complex, neither all good nor all bad, and his character in Pickpocket is a great example.

1:21John Turturro: DeTuro stars as Harry, a skilled pickpocket who's becoming obsolete because of technology that he hasn't learned to use. He doesn't have a cell phone or a computer. Wallets he steals have lots of credit cards but little cash. The watches he's been slipping off his victim's wrists haven't been worth much. He's financially on the edge, but he needs money to take care of his wife, who is unresponsive, probably from the lasting effects of a stroke. The story takes a turn when he steals the backpack of a college-age kid who turns out to be the grandson of a crime boss. John Totoro, welcome back to Fresh Air.

1:59John Turturro: I love this new movie. You're terrific in it. Thank you for coming today. Thank you for having me.

2:04Terry Gross: It's always a pleasure.

2:06John Turturro: So you did a lot of research for this. You even understudied a pickpocket slash magician. Not musician. If we were on the New York subway, would you be able to pick my pocket? Are you skilled enough to do that now?

2:22Terry Gross: Well, it depends what kind of pockets you have, what you're wearing. Horizontal pockets that are really tight with tight jeans are hard. Back pockets are easier. Overcoats pockets are looser. Well, your backpack is on your back and your zipper isn't completely, you know, zipped up.

2:45John Turturro: Then your hand would be in it if you were...

2:47Terry Gross: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I basically did scout a lot of people and I had my hands in certain places. But a lot of times I thought, well, if I take it out, then if I get caught, what am I supposed to say? You know, I'm doing research. Yeah, I don't know if that would, you know, would fly, you know. But I did it in the production office and on the set all the time. I was practicing. And Apollo Robbins, who I read a profile of in The New Yorker, who is a brilliant magician, pickpocket, who had half-brothers who were criminals, he really helped me, gave me exercises and worked with me. Usually pickpockets have worked as teams, a man and a woman, a lot of the time.

3:33Terry Gross: Oh, for distraction? Yeah, for one person sets the other person up and moves them around because you don't come in directly in your line of vision. You come in from the side. You go from the sort of the social situation to a little more personal until you can get really intimate with the person. The whole idea is that they're not going to feel what you do. But if you have a leather watch, a leather wristband, you know, he can take it right off of you with one hand. And that was something I practiced again and again and again.

4:08John Turturro: God, I have enough trouble taking off my wristwatch.

4:11Terry Gross: I know. I'm not sure how you do that. Yeah. But a lot of it is misdirection. It's a violation, obviously, but it's a nonviolent crime. and you are taking, when people did carry cash, they're spending money. You're not wiping them out. You may take your wristwatch.

4:30John Turturro: You're not stealing their bank account. No, you're not stealing their bank account. Like people do digitally now.

4:34Terry Gross: That's right. It's a whole different thing. And it was a tradition for a long time. And a lot of the pickpockets came from, you know, broken homes, orphanages, and they formed these little families that they would bail each other out and they would work certain shifts with agreements, sometimes with the police, who would get a little taste of the action from them.

4:59John Turturro: Were you ever in Oliver and had to sing, You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two?

5:03Terry Gross: I directed Oliver for my mom's church with my mom and my brother, St. Clair's Church, I think while I was in college. So I directed it, yes.

5:15John Turturro: Okay, good preparation.

5:17Terry Gross: Yeah, good preparation. I'm a Dickens fan, obviously. But I read a lot of different books, especially the book Noah Segan, who wrote a beautiful script. He gave me a book called Whiz Mob by the fellow who wrote The Big Con that The Sting is based on. And it's sort of a sociological work because he interviews all these men and women pickpockets in the book. And you see their sort of code and their morality of what they do and what they won't do. Like they won't steal from someone who's drunk or a really old person who has difficulty moving.

6:00John Turturro: It's the criminal with a code kind of thing. Yeah.

6:03Terry Gross: No, they actually do that.

6:04John Turturro: The emotional center of the movie revolves around family. His wife, like your character's wife, is, I'm not sure. I said catatonic.

6:17Terry Gross: Well, she's obviously not responsive, yes. Yeah.

6:22John Turturro: What is her medical condition? Do you know?

6:25Terry Gross: Well, it was never really specified in there. But obviously, sometimes people have a stroke and they don't respond. But their functions are okay. You know, but obviously he has to do a lot of intimate things, you know, with her, you know, carry her up the stairs, you know, give her, you know, bathe her, clean her, comb her hair, make sure she's hydrated. Worry about her catheter. Yeah, her catheter. So there's all these things. And I was sort of struck when I read the script because I thought it's so well structured. It has an Aristotelian almost structure. It doesn't take place in 24 hours, but it's 36 hours really.

7:14Terry Gross: And with this propulsive tension that's inherent in the script, there's this juxtaposed with this tenderness of this man who's never really taken care of anyone, as we discovered later, but now for the last bunch of years, he's understood what it is to care for someone or to use that most ambiguous of words, to love someone, because that's an action. It's not a word. And I think people are capable of growth. I don't think they change, but they're capable of growth. And you do see him treating everyone else in the movie very gentlemanly. You know, he's always giving tips and, you know, trying to say thank you to people.

8:07Terry Gross: And he depends on the kindness of strangers, too. But he reciprocates.

8:14John Turturro: So you've been in the position of being a caregiver.

8:17Terry Gross: I have.

8:17John Turturro: Your brother had paranoid schizophrenia, OCD, bipolar. Yeah. It's a lot. Depression. Yeah. Yeah.

8:31Terry Gross: It's a lot.

8:32John Turturro: And you became his guardian after both your parents were dead. What did that mean to be his guardian?

8:39Terry Gross: Oh, well, I was his legal guardian because he inherited some money when I sold my mom's house. but I had to make sure he had a place to live. Once he was let go, when the hospital discharged him, he was at Creedmoor for a long time. Yeah, he was there for like seven years, right? Eleven years he was there. I didn't realize they had discharged him. They had discharged him, so I had to find different residences, and then I put him in an apartment. I had to hire all the aides, and then someone who was in charge of the aides so I could function. He could be very abusive and very unpredictable. So you never knew what was going to happen.

9:22Terry Gross: So I was always on sort of high alert. No matter where I was in the world, I tried to protect my own family from him. And then eventually, we finally got him on a medicine which he could take monthly. and he sort of, if schizophrenics live long enough, they sort of plateau. They're not as volcanic. But there were times he'd be in a hospital because he acted up. He got thrown out of a lot of apartments. It was really hard to do because there's no system for mentally ill people. They wind up on the streets. But I know he depended on me, and he had a major effect on my life as a person. And I did learn a lot about myself, how much I could withstand and how I learned to protect myself somewhat.

10:29Terry Gross: Because you have to be able to sort of form a little barrier around you.

10:36John Turturro: Was he violent? And did he ever, like, threaten you in a very serious way? Or members of your family? Your parents?

10:43Terry Gross: Yeah, he was violent, yeah. I mean, one of the reasons he went to the mental hospital was because I was worried about my mom because she was a widow. That's right. It was, yes. And, yes, he could be violent. And he also had a lot of violence done to him because he would explode, you know, sometimes. And, you know, the thing about mental hospitals is that they don't, he did very well when he worked on the animal farm, when he had something to do, or he went to the living museum in Creedmoor where he was able to paint and play music. They need activities too, you know. And he was a very complex and very perceptive person.

11:24Terry Gross: He could find your weakness like within a 30-minute ratio. You know, he'd find your weakness. And he could be quite generous. Not that he had that much to be generous with. He was a very good musician. And he just, I guess I learned a lot about human behavior with him and all the people around him.

11:51John Turturro: You had mentioned in an interview that you had renovated your mother's home. And then your brother burned it down.

11:58Terry Gross: That's right. He burned down the house.

12:00John Turturro: Intentionally or accidentally?

12:02Terry Gross: He never said the truth until later on. And then he said he put a cigarette. My mother was at her neighbor's house. And he wanted to see, and he left it on the couch. And he walked out. Because they have these compulsions. And he just left it there. He didn't put it out. And, you know, I had renovated the whole house with my dear friend, Brandon Cole. And it was after my dad died. It was something to help my mom, you know, recover from her grief. And that happened. And that was after my dad passed.

12:38John Turturro: Is that how he ended up in Creedmoor?

12:40Terry Gross: He did. He did. He ended up there because he was starting to get violent. And one of my mom's friends, you know, called the police. while I was away, far away. I was doing this Primo Levi film in the Ukraine, The Truce. And it was very hard, you know, to navigate all this. At the same time, I, you know, that I was able to still care for him and maybe use the word love him is, I didn't know if that was ever possible. And I did. And we actually became pretty close the last like five years of his life. Because he calmed down and I could see my brother again and he was on the right medicine and we had the right health advocate.

13:28Terry Gross: I found this woman who really helped me, Heidi Levy, and she really had a big effect on my life.

13:39John Turturro: Your father had a volatile temper. He did. Between your father's temper and your brother's mental health problems, did you not only have to be vigilant all the time because there might be an eruption? Did you have to, like, study your family, their expressions to see when was an explosion coming, either your father's temper or your brother's, you know, violence? and if you did, like, was that helpful to being an actor? Because you have to study people and then reproduce the human nature that you see around you.

14:20Terry Gross: My father was in the war, so he had PTSD in World War II. He was in D-Day and got blown up and everything. And he was on a destroyer. It hit a mine. you know uh he was they were in the front the destroyers and they were stuck there for like two or three days uh so he had that so him and my brother was not it was not a great combination and i was sort of the person who would calm things down i'm the middle child but i became like my mom's you know protector for uh for a lot of uh my life growing up and uh not that i i chose to do that. I just did it. I guess you have that nature or you don't. But my mother and father were, they were sort of like the honeymooners, but it was as if maybe Charles Bukowski or Joe Orton wrote the honeymooners.

15:16Terry Gross: But it had that dynamic because my mother was very, you know, dry with that and funny. But you learn how to diffuse the situation. And, you know, when I played, when I was younger and I played all these explosive characters and stuff, I understood the reality of that versus just the imaginative reality of that. I saw a lot of violence growing up and I was in the middle of it a bunch of times.

15:45John Turturro: So I want to play a scene from an early movie of yours. This is from 1987, and it's the movie that really got you your first attention. It's the reason Spike Lee cast you in Do the Right Thing, because he'd seen this movie. The movie is Five Corners. It's from 1987, and it's a crime film by John Patrick Shanley, who also wrote Moonstruck, directed by Tony Bill. I mean, Five Corners was directed by Tony Bill. It's about a group of four young New Yorkers in the 1960s. You play a violent sociopath named Hines. And this scene is the climax of the film where the cops are looking for your character as a suspect in a murder.

16:26John Turturro: And you go to your mother's apartment, and the mother's kind of unhinged too. And at the end of the conversation with her, your character Hines hugs her, picks her up, and then throws her through the glass window. and she falls to the street, which is several stories below. So here is my guest John Turturro as Hines and Rose Gregorio as his mother. Have the cops been here? Yeah, a policeman came and asked about you before, but I told him he wasn't lost. He was just out.

16:57Terry Gross: Listen. I'm going to die tonight, Ma. No. Let me play some music. I'm going to die tonight, Ma. Just once. just once before I die. I'd like you to see me.

17:18John Turturro: I see you. Who am I? You're my little Hines.

17:24Terry Gross: Where have I been? I don't know. I've been in jail, Mom. No. I've been in jail. And now I'm out and the cops are coming for me again. And they're gonna kill me. No, I'm gonna go. What's my name? Heinz And who am I to you?

17:44John Turturro: You're my boy

17:45Terry Gross: Now what's your boy gonna do tonight? Tell me Tell me! He's gonna die

18:08Terry Gross: Thank you, Ma.

18:14John Turturro: Lights! Lights!

18:20John Turturro: Oof. Yeah, it's a heavy-duty scene.

18:23Terry Gross: Well, you know, John Patrick Shanley, you know, he did write it. I executed it. We had done a play, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, before that, and John really championed me to get this part. It was a great part. It was a very showy part, but it had a lot of different levels to it. And because of certain experiences I had in my life, John knew that I could embody that character. I remember my dad was still alive. I took my mom and dad to see it. And, of course, my mother was sobbing. she was to the left of me and my father was like he was enjoying how bad I was in the film not bad acting

19:14John Turturro: a bad character

19:16Terry Gross: bad character in the film he was like oh my god you're like so it's a great character exactly when he throws his mother down the stairs down the stairs but they both you know and John had a very complex relationship with his own family. You know, I don't ever felt that way towards my mother. My mother was probably the person who influenced me more than anyone because she was so encouraging to me and sensitive. But that movie, it wasn't a big commercial success, but a lot of people saw me in that movie. And Spike was one of them and Coen's and everyone. So, yeah.

20:00John Turturro: In that scene, your eyes are kind of bulging hang out of your head. And I don't know if you were aware of that while you were filming it, but I was wondering if you'd seen that look on your brother's face.

20:14Terry Gross: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I saw it on other people around him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, my brother said to me once, he said, you know, I've given you a lot of material. And I said, you know, you're really right. You're right. I said, but at a high cost.

20:30John Turturro: My guest is John Turturro. He stars in the new film, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. We'll talk more after a break. And you can keep up with Fresh Air by subscribing to our podcast and leave us a review. It helps a lot. Thank you. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Whole Foods Market. Host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are no antibiotics in their meat department ever, so carve up turkey and spiral cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 brand.

21:09John Turturro: And all their delectable pies are made with no high-fructose corn syrup. Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want only at Whole Foods Market. This message comes from Capital One. Capital One offers checking accounts with no fees or minimums. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash Bank Guy for details. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. Ever notice how every new AI tool asks you to explain your business to it all over again? Google Workspace with Gemini skips that. You get Google's AI built right into the premium versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, and more.

21:50John Turturro: No new tools, no extra logins, just one subscription that gives you personalized AI right inside your actual workflow. Try Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. Hi, this is Molly C.V. Nesper, digital producer at Fresh Air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show. One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter. And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read. It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week.

22:27John Turturro: An exclusive. So subscribe at whyy.org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. I'm going to play another movie scene. Okay. And this is another one. You're the, you're, this is Miller's Crossing.

22:43Terry Gross: Oh God.

22:44John Turturro: Okay. This is from 1990. It's a Coen Brothers film noir set in 1929, and it starred you and Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney. You play Bernie, a bookie who's been skimming money off of fixed games. And Gabriel Byrne's character, Tommy, has been the right-hand man to the city's political boss, but he's been ordered to kill you, to kill Bernie. So you're both driven to the edge of the woods. He's ordered and is surprised to be ordered to kill you. He's given a gun. He walks behind you and marches you deeper and deeper into the woods while you turn around and beg him not to kill you. So here we go.

23:30Terry Gross: Tommy, you can't do this. You don't bump, guys. You're not like those animals back there.

23:39Terry Gross: It's not right, Tom. They can't make us do this. It's the wrong situation. They can't make us different people than we are. Well, that muscle, Tom. I never killed anybody. I used a little information for a chisel, that's all. It's my nature, Tom. I can't help it. Somebody hits me an angle. I play it. I don't deserve to die for that. Do you think I do?

24:02Terry Gross: I'm just a grifter, huh, Tom? I'm on nobody. But I'll tell you what. I never crushed a friend, huh, Tom? I never killed anybody, never crushed a friend, no you, I bet. We're not like those animals. This is not us. This is a hot dream. It's a dream. Tommy, I'm praying to you. I can't die. I can't die. Out here in the woods. Like a dumb animal. In the woods like a dumb animal. Like a dumb animal. I can't die. I can't. I can't die out here in the woods. I can't die.

24:50John Turturro: John, that is such an amazing scene. I'm sitting here smiling, listening back to it. I mean, you're in agony out of fear. But I'm smiling because it's such a great performance. It's just so... I hesitate to use the word entertaining in a scene where there's so much at stake, but it really is so entertaining. And I'm wondering what the script was like, if there were any directions or if the Coen brothers gave you direction, because it would be a totally different scene if you just did it straight without all the whimpering and the pleading and your voice going two octaves higher and breaking.

25:37Terry Gross: No, I mean, it was a well-written scene.

25:39John Turturro: Oh, no, it's very well-written. But you didn't have to do it the way you did, and the way you did it is so great. So can you talk about the process of getting to the level of hysteria that you reach?

25:55Terry Gross: Well, you know, I did a lot of research, and I prepared, you know, interviewing different people. because I wanted to get a certain sort of cadence and voice to it. I interviewed my accountant, Abe, who's a very honest person. And I had him read the script for me, and I had him do it in Yiddish, too. And he had certain cadences. And in the first scene, it does sound like Abe. And I wanted to look like Leopold in Loeb. I think it was Loeb I wanted to look like.

26:30John Turturro: Those are the two famous killers.

26:32Terry Gross: Yeah. So when I was doing that, I had had an experience once I was young. Some guy was late at night. We drove into a schoolyard, my friends and I, on our bikes coming home from a party. He was shooting baskets. I was a basketball player. And we drove in to want to play a two-on-two because there was three of us, and he was shooting baskets. And he thought we were there to rob him. and when I came in with my bike, I came to a stop in front of him and he was a policeman and he thought we were there to rob him or something and he took out his gun and he put it right to my head. And I remember just going like, oh my God, I'm going to die here, you know.

27:14Terry Gross: And I just said, we just wanted to play basketball with you. And he said, oh, I was afraid and my body just tightened up and then he said, okay. And then we did play and I couldn't move. My legs were like concrete, I remember. But, you know, I realized in the scene, there's a gun going to be pointing at me. And I have to kind of, you know, believe that. And the guy who is not a stone cold killer. So you do everything to persuade him to let me go. You know, so I felt like, let me just throw the kitchen sink at him.

27:51John Turturro: So your father was a builder. I think he had his own construction company for a while.

27:56Terry Gross: He did. You worked for your father doing construction work? Yeah, I did.

28:02John Turturro: I was like a rough carpenter.

28:05Terry Gross: Yeah, many, many summers of my life. Yeah, I did some cement work. I was a laborer. Yeah.

28:12John Turturro: So I don't know how tall the buildings were, but did you have to work on a high scaffold?

28:17Terry Gross: Yeah, I did. What's the highest floor? I didn't work on a scaffold, But I worked on the open floors like, you know, 80 stories up, you know, 70 stories up. It was nerve wracking.

28:28John Turturro: It would terrify me. Do you know that famous photo of construction workers on the Empire State Building? Yeah. And they're eating their lunch on scaffolding like a gazillion stories high.

28:38Terry Gross: Yeah. I mean, I saw people fall. Oh, no. My father saw lots of people. Yeah. I mean.

28:43John Turturro: Oh, my God.

28:44Terry Gross: It's a very dangerous world. And, you know, these people are working, they're really sacrificing their bodies to do the work, and they put themselves in all kinds of dangerous situations.

28:57John Turturro: I think of the world of building and construction work as a very macho world. And I'm assuming that when you were working, doing that kind of work with your father, that it was the early days of the Renaissance of feminism. When a lot of construction workers at lunchtime would sit around wolf whistling at women as they walked by. And women were starting, were no longer being flattered by that. They found it really offensive.

29:27Terry Gross: Yeah, like my father would never do that. So he never did that.

29:31John Turturro: But some of the guys did, yeah.

29:33Terry Gross: But it was true, absolutely, you know. And also, everyone was changing. It was the mini skirts and everything, and the go-go boots and everything. So a lot of men were at sea at that time. But I remember that really strongly with my mom getting together with all her girlfriends. And it was sort of like a powwow, you know, of these women. And I realized early on in my life that many of these households, which were tumultuous and from all different backgrounds, that it was the women who were keeping everyone together. They're the ones who held every day with a glue, you know, and I felt very comfortable and I still feel very comfortable working, you know, with women.

30:23Terry Gross: and I think it's because of my mom you know and she was a dressmaker and when she made dresses I would help her with the patterns. I worked with my dad but I helped my mom. I even sometimes when she made wedding dresses and our dummy was too small and the lady was too tall she would ask me would you put it on and you know so I can do all the hems and the beads and my father came in once and I had like a wedding dress on and he was looking at me and I was like I don't care you know what I mean? I'm helping my mother.

30:52John Turturro: My guest is John Turturro. He stars on the new film, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. Ever notice how every new AI tool asks you to explain your business to it all over again? Google Workspace with Gemini skips that. You get Google's AI built right into the premium versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, and more. No new tools, no extra logins, just one subscription that gives you personalized AI right inside your actual workflow.

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32:12John Turturro: Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash financial decoder. So one of your breakthrough roles was in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. You played the racist son of Sal, the owner of the pizzeria. And Spike played Mookie, who is the pizza delivery guy. And there's like a kind of famous scene where Spike's saying to you, like, I don't understand how you can hate black people because your favorite athletes are black, your favorite musicians are black. How is this even possible?

32:48Terry Gross: Right. It's a phenomenon that exists until this very day.

32:53John Turturro: Absolutely. So racially and ethnically, what kind of neighborhood, schools did you go to?

33:03Terry Gross: I grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood for the first six years of my life in Hollis, Queens. It was in a little garden apartment. I had no white friends. My best friend was black. The guy who was the nerdy guy was black. The bully was black. And we had some white people on our block, but I didn't really have any friends my age that were white. and I think that had a huge, musically, friendship-wise, sense of humor-wise, had a huge influence on me. And when I moved to Rosedale, it was more of an Italian, Irish, and somewhat Jewish neighborhood. And that was the first time I felt kind of prejudiced against the color of my skin.

33:51Terry Gross: Everyone thought I was Puerto Rican. So I found it much more aggressive personally to me, even from people who were supposed to be from a similar background to me. And then later on, I went to a school which was somewhat integrated, PS38. And then I got bussed out because it was busing to IS-59, which was all black, was a 90 percent black and 10 percent Jewish school. and that's where I learned to play basketball and made friends. But it was a very volatile time because it was the whole, you know, 1968, I'm Black and I'm Proud, James Brown. It was the beginning of Black Panther Pledge and that was a whole, I had to learn to navigate that all over again.

34:41Terry Gross: So my experiences growing up have sort of helped me, I think, navigate a multicultural world. And I don't feel comfortable being in an all-white neighborhood. Spike always laughs at me and goes, well, I know you're black and all this stuff. But I'm from Sicily, which is a melting pot. I have a lot of other things.

35:05John Turturro: Your family's from Sicily.

35:06Terry Gross: Well, my mother's family is. Right, yeah. My father's from Puglia. My father's from Puglia. But I think that really bonded me and Spike because he grew up in an Italian neighborhood. and so

35:18John Turturro: yeah I didn't know that about him I thought he grew up in Bedford Stuyvesant

35:21Terry Gross: no he grew up in Cobble Hill mostly and his best friend was Italian so he it just was like I was like oh my god this is like someone I know my whole life we're three weeks apart and when he showed me the movie I said I know a lot of people like this and I said I'd rather play the racist guy because it's like that's what it's about the movie and he doesn't have a Ku Klux Klan hood on him. He's just the guy who sells pizza. And I worked at a pizzeria before that and the guy wasn't that different from the guy I was playing. So the thing was to expose it in a way.

36:01John Turturro: So I want to play, we've played a couple of your really early movies, your breakthrough roles. I want to play something more recent. So this is a scene from The Night Of, which is just a terrific series on HBO by Steve Zalian and Richard Price. And Richard Price is just such a great writer of dialogue. He's got such a great ear. So this is a miniseries. You play John Stone, a lawyer who visits police precincts and night courts, looking for low-level clients who can plead out for a flat fee. Like, you're smart and savvy, but you're often treated like a joke by other attorneys and police officers because you look so disheveled and because you have bad eczema, especially on your feet.

36:47John Turturro: And sometimes, like, one doctor tells you to, like, put Crisco on your feet, wrap it in, like, the kind of plastic wrap you wrap food in, and then wear sandals. And how are you going to show up as an attorney that way? But that's the position that you're in, although your feet briefly clear up. So one night you're visiting a client in prison and you notice somebody whose name is Nas, played by Riz Ahmed. You notice him in a precinct cell and can tell there's something different about this kid who's being accused of murder. And you present yourself as his lawyer. This is the second time you visit him in his cell.

37:28John Turturro: And you've noticed that Nas has asthma, like you're picking up on that.

37:34Terry Gross: you're asthmatic huh used to happen when I was a kid I know when I hear it you might grow out of it it's the same family as eczema that just keeps getting worse I'm not sure how it's going to play what? the asthma it might not be a bad thing then again a knife wielding heavy breathing sex brew it's not a pretty picture sex brew? Okay, you need to understand what happened here, all right? We were at her place, we were drinking, I don't drink, and she started giving me all kinds of... I want to tell you something, and it's the most important thing you'll ever hear in your entire life, so don't not hear it.

38:15Terry Gross: Shut it. They come up with their story, we come up with ours. The jury gets to decide which they like best. Now the good news is, we get to hear what their story is first, before we have to tell them ours. So we keep our mouths shut until we know what they're doing. You keep saying story like I'm making it up. I want to tell you the truth. You really don't. I don't want to be stuck with the truth. Not until I have to be. But you need to know what happened. I need to be flexible.

38:51John Turturro: That's a great scene. Are there lines of Richard Parsons' dialogue that are still in your head?

38:56Terry Gross: Oh, yeah. I mean, that was just delicious. The research was delicious. I've worked with Richard before. I know his pace. I know his rhythms. I've read a bunch of his books.

39:09John Turturro: Oh, you're in Clockers, which is adapted from his novel.

39:13Terry Gross: Yeah. And Zalian was, you know, he was such a specific, there was nothing that bored him. He was into minutiae, you know, at all times. And I had a lot of time to prepare. And I had many good tutors, especially Kenny Montgomery, who's a defense lawyer. He was tremendously helpful to me. And, you know, all this stuff comes from the real world. It comes from these guys who are, you know, they're looking around to find clients when you go to the courts. They're selling themselves with their cards and stuff like that. And what interested me about the whole series was this guy is really smart, but he doesn't have necessarily the stomach for it or the constitution for it because there's a big cost to hold someone's life in your hand if you at all are sensitive.

40:11Terry Gross: And so there was, once again, this contradiction, which was in many of the characters, but especially John Stone.

40:20John Turturro: Did you learn how to scratch an itch? Because there's one scene in particular. Yeah. I mean, your character is always itching because of the eczema. And right before you're closing remarks to the jury, you're like itching all over. And you're just like scratching all over. And I kind of related to that. Yeah. I mean, it's. I have very sensitive skin and a lot of itch. So did you research itch?

40:46Terry Gross: Yeah. I did all my proper research. How did you research itch? Well, there's different people, what they would do. Some people use a tool. Some people use a chopstick. You know, they put something on the end of it if they can't reach with their fingernail. And it's a terrible thing, you know. And it gets worse when you get stressed out, you know. And it, you know, affects like your nervous system. Yeah.

41:11John Turturro: And it gets worse when you scratch. There's a whole like scratch itch cycle.

41:15Terry Gross: What was interesting was walking down the street when I was really covered in it and people would just look away. Oh. So when I was in full makeup, I was walking down the street. Oh, full makeup. Okay. Were you wearing sandals and saran wrap? Yeah, I wore sandals. Yeah. They didn't want to look. A lot of times people don't want to look. You know, that's the thing. So that's interesting.

41:35John Turturro: My guest is John Turturro. He stars on the new film, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Google Workspace with a Gemini. Ever notice how every new AI tool asks you to explain your business to it all over again? Google Workspace with Gemini skips that. You get Google's AI built right into the premium versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, and more. No new tools, no extra logins, just one subscription that gives you personalized AI right inside your actual workflow.

42:13John Turturro: Try Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. Support comes from our 2026 lead sponsor of fresh air Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service destination focused dining and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. And every Viking voyage is all inclusive with no children and no casinos. Discover more at Viking.com This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab. Financial decisions can be tricky. Your biases can lead you astray. Financial Decoder, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, can help.

42:56John Turturro: Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash financial decoder. Okay, I want to ask you about an op-ed that you wrote for the Washington Post. And this one, this was like a very upsetting article to read. So this was after Roe v. Wade was overturned. And it's about how your grandmother, your mother's mother, had a botched abortion. She already had like six kids and she got pregnant with the seventh. And her older sister, your great aunt, told her, look, you have to support your family. You can't afford to have another kid. And she gave her this potion that was unknowing to both of them that was toxic.

43:41John Turturro: And it ended up killing her. And you write that it affected three generations of your family. what was the fate of your mother after her mother died?

43:56Terry Gross: No one would accept the other kids because the other families had too many of their own so she went to St. Joseph's Orphanage which was run by Irish nuns her family was Sicilian so there was Sicilian spoken and they told her you can't do that So all the kids were separated from each other? They all went to different orphanages but it affected her whole life And then her father got involved with this other woman who was my mother's mother's friend. Lena, her name was. And she came and took her out after six years. And my mother got very close to her. And three years later, she died of a brain hemorrhage.

44:41Terry Gross: So my mother lost like two mothers by the time she was like 14. So she had one of these indomitable spirits. Like she was always optimistic. I don't know how she did that. And she was like sunshine, you know, in our lives. She just was a resilient spirit, like someone in Knights of, like the Lady in Knights of Kiberia or Sweet Charity. And I also think in my mind, my mom was the most talented person in our family. She could do anything. There wasn't anything. She could draw, she could sew, she could sing, you know, she was, she could do electrical work. She just was such a competent person. And I think she would have had a huge, you know, career if she would have been given that opportunity.

45:30Terry Gross: And I used to always see her make dresses for people. I was thinking, my mom shouldn't be on her knees doing this, you know. She should be like the person who's running the shop, you know, or whatever. So I take my opportunity not for granted.

45:46John Turturro: So you're on the verge of turning 70.

45:50Terry Gross: I deny that.

45:54John Turturro: And it's the age in which I think a lot of actors assume good roles are going to be really scarce. And you've been getting great roles. Yeah. In the last few years, just like The Night Of and Severance and The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, your new movie. I mean, these are like terrific, terrific roles.

46:16Terry Gross: Well, 70 is the new 50, I guess. Listen, I try to stay in shape and keep my memory sharp. I think as an actor, if you get the opportunity, you have a bigger toolbox of experience. Yeah. You can't jump over a fence as quickly or run as fast, but you can distill your experiences. Well, neither would your character. Right. That's right. But you can distill things and understand what stillness is and be really precise because your toolbox is much fuller. You've experienced so many things. And I feel very rich in that way right now. I do. I do. And when I see the only living pickpocket, I see a person who has lived a lot of life that way, you know, and that's me, too.

47:15John Turturro: Yeah.

47:16Terry Gross: You know, so.

47:17John Turturro: I'll just end on a note about your coat. Oh, my coat. In the only living pickpocket. It is this fabulous tweed coat, like a black and white tweed. And when I was watching the movie, and this was before it was released, I thought, like, what a fantastic coat. And I realized, like, you're wearing that because you need to look too well-dressed to be a pickpocket. You know? Right. You look really classy. Right. Why would you pick somebody's pocket if you can afford such a gorgeous coat?

47:49Terry Gross: You know, a costume changes everything because it's got all the pockets. It's like a piece of armor, sort of like a samurai robe, you know. And it harkens back to those black and white movies that you grew up with. That I grew up with and met people from that time. And so, once again, it affects you physically and how you move and everything. So it's really every little thing I've learned from both of my parents is important. in a building, in a dress. You know, every stitch is important.

48:28John Turturro: John Turturro, what a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much.

48:32Terry Gross: What a pleasure to talk to you. I really, really enjoyed it.

48:36John Turturro: John Turturro stars in the new film The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, family caregiving is unpaid labor, but it isn't free. A new AARP study finds out-of-pocket caregiving costs have jumped nearly 60 % in just five years. We'll talk with New York Times columnist Paula Spann about what happens when caring for someone you love threatens your own financial future. I hope you'll join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering today from Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Rebaldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler.

49:27John Turturro: Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. Ever notice how every new AI tool asks you to explain your business to it all over again? Google Workspace with Gemini skips that. You get Google's AI built right into the premium versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, and more. No new tools, no extra logins, just one subscription that gives you personalized AI right inside your actual workflow.

50:05John Turturro: Try Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. This message comes from WFMT. Discover connections in classical music with WFMT's Exploring Music and new host Peter Vandergraaf. Listen Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. on 98.7 FM, WFMT.com, and the app.