The one role John Turturro would hate to be remembered for: “The least of what I’ve done”
To describe someone as a character actor can sometimes feel like it’s damning with faint praise, but it’s often a positive quality for a performer, like John Turturro, who can adapt to the material and be unafraid to take chances, making him a powerful tool within any filmmaker’s arsenal, so it’s no surprise that there are many top directors who prioritise working with him, most notably Spike Lee and the Coen brothers.
The actor kicked off his decades-spanning relationship with Lee in his breakthrough feature Do the Right Thing, where he played the son of Danny Aiello’s character, and in a complex film filled with nuances, Turturro was responsible for playing someone with some hateful ideas in his heart, even if he ultimately shared a deep connection with his family and coworkers. The specific perspective that Lee had on New York was one in which Tuturro could excel, which is why they worked together again on Clockers, Jungle Fever, and Mo’ Better Blues.
On the other end, his relationship with the Coens may have started with a brief role in the underrated gangster thriller Miller’s Crossing, but their collaboration peaked with the cult classic dark comedy Barton Fink, which saw Turturro starring as the titular character, a Jewish screenwriter, who deals with anxiety and writer’s block when he moves to a new apartment complex.
The film won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival and gave a larger audience the opportunity to see Turturro’s talents, who would later be a scene-stealer in another Coen brothers film with his unforgettable performance as Jesus in The Big Lebowski.
The actor might be a favourite among cinephiles, but he’s also someone who will take jobs that help pay for opportunities to take up passion projects. Even if he had built up credibility among film fans for decades, average audience members might know him best for his work on the Transformers film, which the actor has expressed his dismay about.
“I’m not embarrassed about it, but that’s like the least of what I’ve done,” Turturro said, “I know people enjoy them, and that’s great, but they are not the kind of movies I watch, and I don’t want to be known for that.”
Turturro starred in four of the Transformers films directed by Michael Bay as Seymour Simmons, an agent of the Sector 7 division who is tasked with tracking down the Autobots and Decepticons that have made their way to Earth.
While the first Transformers film is actually a pretty entertaining blockbuster to which he adds some genuine suspense and comic sensibilities, the sequels got so bad that not even a distinguished actor may have been able to emerge from them with their dignity intact.
The films were popular enough that they may have been many young people’s first exposure to Turturro, but he’s thankfully been involved in another major science fiction project that has peaked in popularity, as Severance became one of the most-watched shows in Apple TV history, and earned him an Emmy nomination.
