Award winning actor/director John Turturro is one of the most recognizable actors in Hollywood after decades of work, including unforgettable collaborations with Spike Lee and the Coen brothers. Turturro’s brilliantly nuanced turn as Harry Lehman in the Sony Pictures Classics film “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” has earned him some of the best reviews of his career, and possible talk of a long-deserved Oscar nomination.
Harry, a veteran pickpocket with traditional skills, is struggling to bring in cold hard cash in a modern digital world full of credit cards and crypto. After he accidentally steals a valuable USB stick, he must race against time to return the item before a dangerous crime family comes after him. During an intimate Q&A outside Hotel Telluride at the festival t his year, we spoke with him about researching the world of pickpockets, being a caretaker and what it was like to meet Roger Ebert.
Did you ever encounter Roger Ebert?
For my directorial debut, I did a film called “Mac” and he really, really enjoyed it because his father was an electrician, and because there aren’t that many films about the working class, or about class. You know, that’s a very multicultural world that has changed with different groups and he really appreciated that. That really meant a lot to me, that he was supportive about a family: how they came together and split apart. Roger was an even bigger supporter of “Romance & Cigarettes.” You always remember the first one in the beginning, when you do your own film, how strenuous that is, and the people who really are champions of what you’re trying to do. I’m interested in a lot of working-class stories, and they don’t always get, you know, heard or seen.
Why the world of pickpockets? And how do you find a way to bring this quiet humanity and vulnerability that makes an audience root for you, even though you’re doing something that we don’t agree with?
Right. Well, I mean, there are movies about really bad, really terrible criminals, serial killers and things like that. I thought it was a beautiful script when I read it. It takes place, you know, in this, like, Aristotelian time where they would tell a story in 24 hours. This is 36 hours where this guy is doing what he can to make a living. He didn’t take care of his daughter, but now he definitely has grown. Now he has someone he takes care of and he’s trying to survive the only way he knows. Noah [Segan], our director, gave me all this history of pickpockets from the 1880s into the 20th century.
There’s a book called The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid by Colin Meloy about a band of child pickpockets … imagine The Invention of Hugo Cabret meets Oliver Twist. And this other book, The Big Con by David W. Maurer, where this guy interviews all these pickpockets. They would usually pay the cops off to give them a time they could do it. They dressed well. The whole idea was not to do anything that would be noticeable, and if one person got arrested, the other person would bail them out. They would maybe go to another town for a while, then come back.
So they had a different, you know, point of view of the world. A lot of these people were poor, abandoned, and they found this little family who had their own sort of code about how to take care of each other. They’re not into heavy crime and a lot of them would put the wallet in the mailbox because they just wanted the cash. There was this one woman who became a really good pickpocket from watching pickpockets. This guy followed her, and he said, “I’ve been watching you. You’re amazing. Let’s work together.” She agreed, they did their thing and parted ways. He said her hands were so tiny, she could put it in and slip in and out. Anywhere.
You see the regrets that he has, and that he’s finally trying to do, like, the right thing. He just happens to steal from the wrong family. It reminded me of those film noirs, those classic characters who are very human, but they’re doomed sometimes to do certain things. I thought there was a delicacy to it, and what that would be to sustain and find variation in it.
The caretaker element was so touching. Especially when Harry is dancing to that disco hit from Odyssey, “Native New Yorker.” It felt like he was just reliving a beautiful core memory, not only for himself, but for Rosie.
I had this impulse that maybe that’s what they did. Maybe they worked as a team, maybe they went out dancing a lot, and that was something they shared. Maybe it was a personal, private, little thing that you do in your bedroom. I’ve also been a caretaker for a long time for my brother. It’s a hard job. It really is. You are challenged as a person to say, how much of my life am I gonna put aside and give up for someone? And if it’s someone who’s given you a lot it’s one thing. If it’s someone who has mental issues that’s even more challenging.
I think, as you get older, you realize that these are the things that make you who you are. Every experience in life makes you who you are. The people that touch you. You see examples of that, they’re really unheralded. They’re unsung heroes. They don’t get an award for being the best characters, best guardians.
What was it about playing Harry that resonated with you?
I think, as you get older, you appreciate delicacy even more. I don’t know what that is. You know, when I was younger, we played all these more robust parts and sometimes I like doing that. But this one was on the page: I could see this guy. Noah and Sam Levy were wonderful collaborators. I got to work with friends like Giancarlo (Esposito) and Steve Buscemi and then the big surprise was we got Tatiana (Maslany) to come in for one day and she killed it. I am doing the revival of Eugène Ionesco’s play in Cambridge at American Repertory Theatre, Rhinoceros, right now with her and Paul Giamatti and she’s extraordinary. For “Pickpocket,” we didn’t even rehearse that scene. We just blocked it and just did it. It was good.
There’s a line one of the characters says: “Just because you’re lonely doesn’t mean you’re alone.” What are your thoughts?
Yeah, that was a beautiful line. It was my favorite line. I think it sums up the film beautifully.
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