John Turturro

John Turturro is an American actor, filmmaker, and Broadway performer born on February 28, 1957, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. The middle son of Katherine Florence Turturro and Nicholas Turturro, he was raised Catholic and relocated with his family to the Rosedale section of Queens at age six. His mother, an amateur jazz singer, was born in the United States to parents with roots in Aragona, Sicily, while his father emigrated from Giovinazzo, Italy at age six and later worked as a carpenter and construction worker before joining the U.S. Navy. Turturro earned a Bachelor of Arts in theater studies from the State University of New York at New Paltz in 1979, then pursued graduate study at the Yale School of Drama, where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1983. He has lived in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn since 1988 and holds dual Italian and American citizenship as of January 2011.

Turturro's stage work began in earnest in 1983, when he originated the title role in John Patrick Shanley's Danny and the Deep Blue Sea at the Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center. He reprised the role the following year Off-Broadway and received an Obie Award for the performance. His Broadway career spans from 1984 to 2003, during which he appeared in Death of a Salesman and starred in Life (x) 3. He also served as a stage director, making his Broadway directorial debut in October 2011 with Relatively Speaking, a production of three comedic one-act plays written by Elaine May, Woody Allen, and Ethan Coen, featuring a cast that included Julie Kavner, Marlo Thomas, Mark Linn-Baker, and Steve Guttenberg.

His first film appearance was a non-speaking extra role in Raging Bull in 1980, and he went on to a notable supporting part in William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. in 1985. His career breakthrough came with Five Corners in 1987, a performance that prompted Spike Lee to cast him in Do the Right Thing in 1989. That film initiated a collaboration between Turturro and Lee spanning nine pictures, more than Lee has made with any other actor, including Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Clockers, Girl 6, He Got Game, Summer of Sam, She Hate Me, and Miracle at St. Anna.

Turturro also developed an extended working relationship with Joel and Ethan Coen, appearing in Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink, both released in 1990 and 1991 respectively. His lead performance in Barton Fink earned him the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor. He continued collaborating with the Coens in The Big Lebowski in 1998 and O Brother, Where Art Thou? in 2000. Among his other prominent film credits are Fearless, Quiz Show, and Illuminata, the last of which he also produced and directed and which starred his wife, actress Katherine Borowitz. He directed a total of five films: Mac in 1992, Illuminata in 1998, Romance and Cigarettes in 2005, Fading Gigolo in 2013, and The Jesus Rolls in 2020. Fading Gigolo premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2013, with Turturro acting alongside Woody Allen. In March 2014, he received the Career Achievement tribute and award at the 31st Edition of the Miami International Film Festival.

On television, Turturro received a Primetime Emmy Award for his guest portrayal of Ambrose Monk, Adrian Monk's brother, in the USA Network comedy series Monk. He starred in the HBO thriller miniseries The Night Of in 2016, for which he also received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, and appeared in the HBO miniseries The Plot Against America in 2020. Since 2022, he has portrayed Irving Bailiff in the Apple TV+ thriller series Severance. He played Carmine Falcone in Matt Reeves' The Batman in 2022 and portrayed Seymour Simmons across four films in the Transformers live-action series beginning in 2007. In 2019, he played William of Baskerville in a television adaptation of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

Turturro has received nominations for three Golden Globe Awards in addition to his Emmy recognition. His younger brother is actor Nicholas Turturro, and actress Aida Turturro and composer and film director Richard Termini are his cousins. He has two children with Katherine Borowitz, who transitioned to a social work career in 2016. Turturro participates as a jury member for the New York International Children's Film Festival, which screens films for children between the ages of three and eighteen.