John Turturro admits pickpocketing colleagues for new crime thriller role
Veteran actor trained with experts for lead role in ‘The Only Living Pickpocket in New York’
John Turturro claims he "pickpocketed a lot of people" to prepare for his role in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.
The 69-year-old actor plays larcenist Harry Lehman in the crime thriller and worked with expert Apollo Robbins to develop his sleight-of-hand skills for the part.
He told The New York Times: "Apollo Robbins is like a concert pianist. I’m never going to be that. I mean, he could take my watch off and every single time I don’t feel it. "He gave me exercises with coins to do and taught me how to bump someone."
Turturro "kept practicing, mostly on set", and some of the cast and crew on the film became his unsuspecting targets.
He revealed: "I pickpocketed a lot of people. Sometimes they would catch me, but a lot of times they didn’t know."
The Big Lebowski star even found himself practicing on the New York Subway last summer, occasionally eyeing commuters' open bags and getting his hand close to a wallet or phone, but stopped himself before taking anything.
Turturro said: "I came really close. I just wanted to feel the thrill, the nerves of what that would be." He joked that claiming he was practicing for a movie would not be a convincing defence in court.
The Severance actor said: "I would think, Well, I don’t want to get arrested. What was I going to say? That I was doing research?”
Turturro has never been a victim of pickpocketing, but his wife, fellow actor Katherine Borowitz, has.
"We were together, coming out of the movie, someone distracted her, went in her purse,” he said. “I mean, I had my apartment robbed, but that was different. I put an air-conditioner in the window of a little studio, and the next day, I was robbed."
The film stood out for Turturro because of its original story, which explores how loss, failure and unexpected responsibility can make someone realise what matters most in life.
He said: "I read so many scripts and they’re so derivative. But this one, wow. A person who’s never taken care of someone now realises that’s what life is, to care for someone. His life has changed, the world has changed, his profession has changed, and it just resonated with me. At a certain age, you know what loss is, you know what failure is."
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, which is released in selected US theatres on Friday, follows larcenist Harry Lehman as he struggles to care for his disabled wife Rosie (Karina Arroyave). However, danger closes in on Harry after he steals a USB stick belonging to a crime family and sells it on.
