{"id":378652,"date":"2026-10-21T05:14:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T05:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/378652\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T05:14:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T05:14:41","slug":"john-turturro-thief-of-new-york-characters-adds-a-capstone-in-the-last-pickpocket-in-new-york-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/378652\/","title":{"rendered":"John Turturro, thief of New York characters, adds a capstone in ‘The Last Pickpocket in New York’"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 John Turturro<\/a> grew up in Hollis, Queens, and has lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn, since 1988. Through his life as a New Yorker, his most reliable reservoir of inspiration has been the sidewalks and subway cars around him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see the variety and diversity,\u201d Turturro says. \u201cIt\u2019s always around you. When I\u2019m on the train, there are so many different kinds of people. Especially the 7 train. I get a lot of things from the 7 train.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turturro\u2019s Pino, the racist pizzeria worker of \u201cDo The Right Thing,\u201d came from guys Turturro grew up around. His Brooklyn-born trash-talking bowler Jesus Quintana from \u201cThe Big Lebowski\u201d was based on a Lower East Side man Turturro met just after the man got out of jail. Turturro liked his voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI interview a lot of people and I take things from them. They know I\u2019m going to,\u201d Turturro says. \u201cSometimes I keep in touch with certain people, but sometimes you feel kind of bad about that. Like a thief in the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sitting outside at a cafe around the corner from his Park Slope brownstone, Turturro chuckles. The symmetry with his latest New York character is almost too perfect. In \u201cThe Only Living Pickpocket in New York,\u201d<\/a> Turturro stars as Harry Lehman, an aging pickpocket in an increasingly cashless and digital New York.<\/p>\n

The film, which Sony Pictures Classics releases in select theaters Friday, is a fitting capstone for the 69-year-old Turturro, a shape-shifting character actor who has always worked best when you don\u2019t see him working.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole skill of it is that the person doesn\u2019t know,\u201d Turturro says of pickpockets. \u201cI used to make a list of everything I had in common and everything I didn\u2019t have in common with a character. A lot of things resonated with me. People don\u2019t look at you anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Only Living Pickpocket in New York,\u201d written and directed by Noah Segan, is an elegiac ode not just to a bygone, analog New York but to a rich generation of New York actors. Steve Buscemi<\/a> co-stars as a pawnshop owner and Giancarlo Esposito<\/a> plays a police detective. A lot of the movie\u2019s joy is seeing such archetypal New York performers on their home turf. <\/p>\n

Turturro\u2019s soulful performance has brought him something rare for the much-loved but relatively seldom-honored actor: Oscar buzz. \u201cThe Only Living Pickpocket in New York\u201d could land him his first nomination.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked so hard and long before that it\u2019s wonderful when things actually come together,\u201d says Turturro. \u201cIt\u2019s rarer than people think, you know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t look like Robert Redford’<\/p>\n

Turturro could just as easily be talking about the New York Knicks<\/a>, whose championship he\u2019s still basking in. \u201cMiraculous,\u201d he says, smiling. The sun was also shining on Turturro on a recent bright autumn day in Brooklyn. \u201cThe Only Living Pickpocket\u201d had just played at the New York Film Festival, where many of Turturro\u2019s longtime friends and collaborators, like Joel and Ethan Coen, came to support him. The moment has made him reflective.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started, I thought: I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going to work. I feel like I have the ability, but I don\u2019t look like Robert Redford,\u201d says Turturro.<\/p>\n

Ironically, it was a film with Redford, 1994\u2019s \u201cQuiz Show,\u201d that Turturro attributes to him and his wife of 40 years, Katherine Borowitz, being able to stay in New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got \u2018Quiz Show\u2019 and I was going to get paid,\u201d recalls Turturro. \u201cI said, \u2018Well, maybe we have enough.\u2019 So we stayed here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, Turturro has played street-wise New York hustlers, high-minded intellectuals and world-weary schlubs. He\u2019s played a corner store owner (\u201cJungle Fever\u201d), an NYPD hostage negotiator (\u201cThe Taking of Pelham 123\u201d), a court-appointed defense attorney (\u201cThe Night Of\u201d), a mob boss (\u201cThe Batman\u201d), a scriptwriting playwright (\u201cBarton Fink\u201d) and a gigolo ( \u201cFading Gigolo,\u201d<\/a> which he directed). Like few actors, he has captured the city, from Broadway to the Bowery to Bayside. <\/p>\n

In a changing city, Turturro abides <\/p>\n

The kinds of characters Turturro has made a living capturing can feel like an endangered species in a more sanitized, high-priced New York. Turturro grants that the city has changed. Cab drivers, he notes, no longer tell you their life story while barely keeping an eye on the road. But regardless of the number of pickpockets left, Turturro finds the same spirit is alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are different people now in New York. But if you go to certain pockets, you can find them,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were in neighborhoods for this and I was like, \u2018Wow, this is a whole other world.\u2019 We shot way out past Coney Island. Sometimes I had a dressing room in a hair salon. I\u2019d watch the clientele.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Turturro can often be spied walking around Brooklyn like he always has been. He takes the subway home after Knicks games. For the most part, people are cool. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone treats me the same, and that\u2019s the way I like it. I can understand people who are like superstars. But that does really reduce your options in life. It removes you from life, like, taking the train home after a game,\u201d says Turturro. \u201cIf you lose yourself, what do you have? You don\u2019t have anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

This story was updated to correct the name of Turturro’s new movie in the headline.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 John Turturro grew up in Hollis, Queens, and has lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[29905,2847,19013,29907,118,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-378652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-ap-online-top-entertainment-headlines","tag-ap-top-news","tag-ap-top-news-l-twc-regions","tag-ap-top-news-entertainment","tag-associated-press","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}