Actor John Turturro—known for Do the Right Thing, Miller’s Crossing, Mr. Deeds, and Severance, to name a few—spoke with The South Shore Press ahead of the Southampton Playhouse’s 20th-anniversary screening of his third feature directorial effort, Romance & Cigarettes.
A screwball love letter to his parents, ’tis the irreverent tale of Nick Murder (peak–The Sopranos James Gandolfini) shaking up his household and suburban neighborhood at large when news of his affair with Tula (Kate Winslet) spreads via a barrage of elaborate musical numbers.
The filmmaker sent his grandest praise the late Gandolfini’s way. “He just had this everyman quality,” Turturro said. “He was such a wonderful actor, a very delicate actor.”
Humble as he was, Turturro did signal pride in the end result of several key scenes. This includes a moment taken straight from his own parents’ shared special language, in which a terminal Nick asks his wife, Kitty (Susan Sarandon), to scare him every once in a while to remind him he’s alive—resulting in melancholy-subverting hijinks played to literal, knife-wielding whimsy.
“I was like, ‘What’s going on here? Wow, that’s something that’s rare,’” Turturro said. “And something that’s worth sharing.”
During the post-screening Q&A, Turturro revealed it took two years to acquire all the music rights—and why he rarely wavered, considering his soundtrack selections paramount.
“Music is a form of emotional transportation,” he said. “It’s a form of prayer. It’s a form of articulation. It’s a form of fantasy. It’s a form of dreaming—and I think that’s the potency of the film.”
On the wisdom he’d impart to fellow creatives, Turturro advised: “Be relaxed, and do things simply.”
“Be in the sequence. Everyone has their own personality,” he said. “Sometimes you need to be relaxed in order to go places. Me? I just try to listen, work with other people, and stay in the scene.”
“When I see this movie,” Turturro concluded, “the audacity of it—I’m impressed.”
Southampton Playhouse Artistic Director Eric Kohn hit it perfectly on the nose in reply.
“I think it’s safe to say that we are, too.”