John Michael Turturro ( , ; born February 28, 1957) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his varied roles in independent films, as well as his frequent collaborations with the Coen brothers and Spike Lee. His accolades include a Cannes Film Festival Award and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for three Golden Globe Awards.
He achieved his career breakthrough with Five Corners (1987). He acted in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), and Clockers (1995). He also starred in the Coens' Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), for which he won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor, The Big Lebowski (1998), and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). He also starred in Fearless (1993), Quiz Show (1994), and Gloria Bell (2018); and portrayed Seymour Simmons in the Transformers film series (2007–2011, 2017) and Carmine Falcone in The Batman (2022).
For his guest role in the USA Network comedy series Monk, Turturro received a Primetime Emmy Award. He has also starred in the HBO thriller miniseries The Night Of (2016), the HBO miniseries The Plot Against America (2020), and the Apple TV+ thriller series Severance (2022–present).
He has directed five films, Mac (1992), Illuminata (1998), Romance and Cigarettes (2005), Fading Gigolo (2013), and The Jesus Rolls (2020).
Early life and education John Turturro was born on February 28, 1957 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the middle son of Katherine Florence () and Nicholas Turturro. His mother was born in the U.S. to parents with roots in Aragona, Sicily, Italy, and was an amateur jazz singer who worked in a naval yard during World War II.Stated on Finding Your Roots, October 31, 2017
His maternal grandmother died of an unsuccessful at-home abortion when his mother was six, leaving his mother in an orphanage, as his grandfather was unable to provide for the children on his own. His father emigrated at age six from Giovinazzo, Italy to the United States, and later worked as a carpenter and construction worker before joining the U.S. Navy. He died from lung cancer in 1988.
Turturro was raised as a Catholic and moved to the Rosedale section of Queens, New York, with his family when he was 6. He graduated from the State University of New York at New Paltz in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts in theater studies. In 1983, he completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Yale School of Drama.
Career
Turturro's first film appearance was a non-speaking extra role in Raging Bull (1980). He created the title role of John Patrick Shanley's Danny and the Deep Blue Sea at the Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in 1983. He repeated it the following year Off-Broadway and won an Obie Award. Turturro had a notable supporting role in William Friedkin's action film To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), as the henchman of the villainous counterfeiter played by Willem Dafoe.
Spike Lee liked Turturro's performance in Five Corners (1987) so much that he cast him in Do the Right Thing (1989). This movie was the first of a long-standing collaboration between the director and Turturro, which includes work together on nine filmsmore than any other actor in the Lee oeuvreincluding Mo' Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Clockers (1995), Girl 6 (1996), He Got Game (1998), Summer of Sam (1999), She Hate Me (2004), and Miracle at St. Anna (2008).
Turturro has appeared in both comedy and drama films, and engaged in an extended collaboration with the Coen Brothershe appeared in their films Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991, in the lead role), The Big Lebowski (1998), and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). Turturro has appeared in several of Adam Sandler's movies, such as Mr. Deeds (2002) and You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008). He played a severely disturbed patient of Jack Nicholson's character in the comedy Anger Management, and played Johnny Depp's character's antagonist in Secret Window.
Turturro hosted Saturday Night Live in 1994, where he spoofed his then-recently made film, Quiz Show, being told he was ineligible to host unless he answered questions in a booth and if he failed, the honor of hosting would go to Joey Buttafuoco, who witnessed Turturro's test. He won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Adrian Monk's brother Ambrose in the USA Network series Monk, and reprised the role on numerous occasions. He has been nominated and won many awards from film organizations such as Screen Actors Guild, Cannes Film Festival, Golden Globes and others.
Turturro produced, directed and acted in, the film Illuminata (1999), which also starred his wife, actress Katherine Borowitz. He wrote and directed the film Romance and Cigarettes (2005). In 2006 he appeared in Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd, and as the Sector 7 agent Seymour Simmons in four films of the Transformers live-action series. In 2010, he directed, and had cameo on-screen appearances in, Passione, which chronicles the rich musical heritage of Naples, Italy. His stage directorial debut was in October 2011, with the Broadway play Relatively Speaking, in which he guided an ensemble of veteran actors in a production of three comedic one-act plays, written by Elaine May, Woody Allen, and Ethan Coen. The cast included Julie Kavner, Marlo Thomas, Mark Linn-Baker, and Steve Guttenberg.
Turturro's fifth directorial film Fading Gigolo premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in mid-September 2013. Turturro also acts in the film alongside Woody Allen, who plays a novice pimp overseeing the sex work of Turturro's character. In a September 2013 interview, Turturro expressed his intention to draw parallels between sex work and acting, explaining that acting is a "service business" in which actors are "acting out people's wishes or fantasies".
In March 2014, Turturro received the Career Achievement tribute and award at the 31st Edition of the Miami International Film Festival at the Olympia Theater in downtown Miami. Turturro starred in the 2016 miniseries The Night Of and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. In 2019, Turturro played William of Baskerville in a television adaptation of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.
In 2022, he appeared in Matt Reeves' film The Batman based on the DC Comics character of the same name as Carmine Falcone. In 2023 he starred as Mickey Sabbath in the off-Broadway adaptation of Philip Roth's novel Sabbath's Theater by The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center.Alexis Soloski, "'Sabbath’s Theater' Review: John Turturro Embodies a Life and a Libido", The New York Times, November 3, 2023. Since 2022, Turturro has portrayed Irving Bailiff on the television series Severance.
In spring 2025 he was filming The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, directed by Noah Segan in New York City.
Personal life Turturro's younger brother is actor Nicholas Turturro. Composer and film director Richard Termini and actress Aida Turturro are his cousins. He has two children with his wife, actress Katherine Borowitz, who moved on to a social work career in 2016. One of those two children is Arianna Turturro, a comic book artist and former actress. Turturro's older brother, Ralph, resided at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center from the early 2000s until his death in 2022.
John Turturro participates as a member of the Jury for the New York International Children's Film Festival (NYICFF), which is dedicated to screening films for children between the ages of 3 and 18. Turturro holds dual Italian and American citizenship as of January 2011.Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
He has lived in Park Slope in Brooklyn, New York, since 1988.
Acting credits Film Year Title Role Notes 1980 Raging Bull Man at table Uncredited1984 Exterminator 2 Guy #1 The Flamingo Kid Ted from Pinky's1985 Desperately Seeking Susan Ray To Live and Die in L.A. Carl Cody1986 Hannah and Her Sisters Writer The Color of Money Julian Gung Ho Willie Off Beat Neil Pepper1987 Five Corners Heinz Zabantino The Sicilian Pisciotta 1989 Do the Right Thing Pino 1990 Catchfire Pinella State of Grace Detective Nick Richardson Mo' Better Blues 'Moe' Flatbush Miller's Crossing Bernie 'The Shamata Kid' Bernbaum 1991 Men of Respect Mike Battaglia Jungle Fever Paulie Carbone Barton Fink Barton Fink 1992 Mac Niccolò Vitelli Also director and writer Brain Donors Roland T. Flakfizer 1993 Fearless Bill Pearlman1994 Being Human Lucinnius Quiz Show Herb Stempel The Search for One-eye Jimmy Disco Bean1995 Search and Destroy Ron Unstrung Heroes Sidney Lidz Clockers Detective Larry Mazilli1996 Girl 6 Murray Box of Moonlight Al Fountain Grace of My Heart Joel Milner1997 Lesser Prophets Leon The Truce Primo Levi1998 Illuminata Tuccio Also director, writer and producer Rounders Joey Knish He Got Game Billy Sunday OK Garage Jonny The Big Lebowski Jesus Quintana Animals Tuxedo Man1999 Summer of Sam Harvey the Dog (voice) Cradle Will Rock Aldo Silvana2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou? Pete The Man Who Cried Dante Dominio Company Man Crocker Johnson Two Thousand and None Benjamin Kasparian The Luzhin Defence Alexander Luzhin2001 Monkeybone Monkeybone (voice) A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing Walker2002 Collateral Damage Sean Armstrong Mr. Deeds Emilio Lopez2003 Fear X Harry Anger Management Chuck Opopomoz John (voice)2004 Secret Passage Paolo Zane Secret Window John Shooter She Hate Me Don Angelo Bonasera 2BPerfectlyHonest Sal / Roberto2005 Romance and Cigarettes Male Dancer & Singer Also director, writer and producer The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation Son (voice)Short film2006 The Good Shepherd Ray Brocco A Few Days in September William Pound2007 Transformers Agent Seymour Simmons Margot at the Wedding Jim Slipstream Harvey Brickman Joulutarina Iisakki (voice) English dub2008 What Just Happened Dick Bell You Don't Mess with the Zohan Fatoush 'The Phantom' Hakbarah Miracle at St. Anna Detective Antonio 'Tony' Ricci2009 The Taking of Pelham 123 Lieutenant Vincent Camonetti Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Seymour Simmons Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy Himself Documentary; also writer and executive producer2010 Passione Himself / narrator Documentary; also director and co-writer The Nutcracker in 3D The Rat King 2011 Cars 2 Francesco Bernoulli (voice) Transformers: Dark of the Moon Seymour Simmons Somewhere Tonight Leroy2013 Fading Gigolo Fioravante Also director and writer Gods Behaving Badly Hades2014 God's Pocket Arthur 'Bird' Capezio Exodus: Gods and Kings Seti I Rio, I Love You Homem Segment "Quando não há Mais Amor"; also director and writer2015 Mia Madre Barry Huggins Partly Cloudy with Sunny Spells Lombelli The Ridiculous 6 Abner Doubleday 2016 Hands of Stone Frankie Carbo 2017 Landline Alan Jacobs Hair Himself Short film; also director and writer Transformers: The Last Knight Seymour Simmons 2018 Gloria Bell Arnold 2019 The True Adventures of Wolfboy Mr. Silk The Jesus Rolls Jesus Quintana Also director and writer2022 The Batman Carmine Falcone Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Dottore (voice) Forty Winks Milo 2024 The Room Next Door Damian Cunningham The Cut Boz 2026 The Only Living Pickpocket in New York Harry A Statement David J. Rose Completed
Television