{"id":613474,"date":"2026-09-27T15:38:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T15:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/613474\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T15:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T15:38:21","slug":"john-turturro-on-joining-oscar-race-and-severance-season-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/613474\/","title":{"rendered":"John Turturro on Joining Oscar Race and ‘Severance’ Season 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHot on the heels of his Golden Eye award ceremony on Saturday night, John Turturro<\/a> entertained another crowd at a Zurich Film Festival<\/a> masterclass on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Emmy-winning U.S. star has been recognized for his performance in Noah Segan\u2019s The Only Living Pickpocket in New York<\/a>, a project that is already garnering awards buzz<\/a>. In the film, Turturro plays Harry, a seasoned pickpocket whose carefully controlled life is thrown into turmoil when a job goes wrong, setting off a tense chain of events that unfolds over the course of 36 hours.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a career-spanning conversation with Deadline\u2018s Melanie Goodfellow \u2014\u00a0the actor\u2019s shining Golden Eye trophy neatly nestled between them \u2014 Turturro discussed growing up in an immigrant household, his decades-long friendship with Spike Lee, and the transition from acting to filmmaking.<\/p>\n

\n\tTurturro, who has steadily become one of the industry\u2019s most formidable actors yet to put \u201cOscar nominee\u201d on his resume, was asked about joining the best actor race this year with the Sundance success The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. \u201cI never really have gone the whole hog with it,\u201d he responded about the upcoming awards campaign. \u201cBut now I\u2019m the lead in the film, so I\u2019m going to support the film because I love the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe explained that being pulled into awards conversations is \u201chelpful to help you do the next thing.\u201d Turturro continued: \u201cIs it nice to be acknowledged? Great, but that\u2019s not why you do it. [\u2026] Just because a film is really popular doesn\u2019t mean it will have staying power, but it\u2019s nice to be in the conversation. I don\u2019t look upon myself as being a competitive person. I\u2019m competitive with myself,\u201d he added. \u201cI want to get the most out of what I can do, but it\u2019s not sports!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, he admitted to feeling surprised by the positive critic reaction out of Sundance. \u201cFinally,\u201d he thought, \u201cI\u2019m in something that people will see\u2026 My job is I like to try to improve, and I feel like being an actor is one of the few things you can improve in. You may not be able to run as fast as you did when you were younger, but I have a lot of life experience, and as you get older, you accumulate that, and you can distill things in a way that you couldn\u2019t do when you were young, because you didn\u2019t really experience all those things. And now I\u2019ve experienced life, death, loss, being a parent, being married \u2014\u00a0what it is to really love someone versus falling in love. That\u2019s a huge difference,\u201d he giggled.<\/p>\n

\n\tTurturro regaled attendees with stories about his impressive stage career. He naturally came on to two major TV performances of his in the last decade: HBO\u2019s The Night Of and Apple\u2019s Severance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe coyly confirmed a return for his character, Irving Bailiff, in season three of the Emmy-winning Severance with Adam Scott. \u201cYeah,\u201d he (eventually) told the room. \u201cAs long as they give me interesting things to do, then I\u2019m interested.\u201d He swiftly took the opportunity to gush over friend and colleague Christopher Walken, whose character, Burt Goodman, began a romance with Turturro\u2019s Irving in season one. \u201c\u2018Who\u2019s going to be my love interest?’\u201d Turturro asked before joining the show. \u201cAnd they were like, \u2018All these younger guys.\u2019 I said, \u2018Well no, I\u2019ve worked with Chris Walken,\u2019 and I said, \u2018I want Chris, because I love Chris.\u2019 And I don\u2019t have to act that I love him because I love him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThough Walken \u201cdidn\u2019t understand a lot of the show,\u201d Turturro was able to guide him through their authentic, real-life friendship. \u201cI said, \u2018Don\u2019t worry about it. You just look at me.\u2019 We have so much fun because I directed him like three times, and we\u2019ve acted, and we\u2019ve worked together a lot. And he\u2019s a wonderful theater actor, and people obviously think he plays only strange [characters] but he can do a lot of different things. He\u2019s also very sensitive, but he has a childlike joy in his work, and when that happens, anything is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTurturro received a round of applause when discussing the HBO crime drama The Night Of, which ran for one season in 2016 and co-starred Riz Ahmed. It would later win five Emmys, and Turturro was nominated for his role as the eczema-stricken defense lawyer John Stone. \u201cThe Night Of is something I\u2019m very proud of,\u201d said Turturro on Sunday. \u201cIt was originally a BBC thing, which I actually never watched because I didn\u2019t want to be influenced.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe even confirmed that he actually wanted to do another season of it. \u201cBut they couldn\u2019t agree on what the story would be,\u201d revealed the actor. \u201cBut I loved doing it. It was one of those great experiences in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTurturro\u2019s career spans four decades, having worked with acclaimed directors such as Spike Lee, the Coen brothers, Martin Scorsese, Robert Redford, Robert De Niro, Nanni Moretti and Pedro Almod\u00f3var.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe first gained international<\/a> recognition through his collaborations with Lee, appearing in Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever. With Joel and Ethan Coen, he acted in Miller\u2019s Crossing, Barton Fink, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Big Lebowksi, in which Turturro created the iconic Jesus Quintana. For his lead performance in Barton Fink, he won best actor at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, an experience that Turturro reflected on at his Zurich masterclass. He even confessed to feeling like he lands \u201cmore normal\u201d roles in Europe than across the Atlantic, and said he has turned down scripts \u201cagain and again\u201d that involve his character being violent towards women.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt his Zurich Golden Eye ceremony Saturday night, Turturro collected the award and quoted Italian novelist Cesare Pavese. \u201c[He] once said that the only great thing in life is to begin. I still consider myself a beginner in many ways,\u201d said the star. \u201cI\u2019m very fortunate. I wanted to make a living doing something that interested me and to do interesting work \u2014 to share that with an audience, [and that] wouldn\u2019t diminish their intelligence at the same time,\u201d he laughed. \u201cI consider this an encouragement to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTurturro joins 2026 Zurich honorees Julianne Moore<\/a> and Tom Hiddleston<\/a>. The 22nd edition runs Sept. 24-Oct. 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hot on the heels of his Golden Eye award ceremony on Saturday night, John Turturro entertained another crowd…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,1019,276085,111,139,69,19324,276086,301660,40857],"class_list":["post-613474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-john-turturro","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-severance","tag-the-only-living-pickpocket-in-new-york","tag-zurich-2026","tag-zurich-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}