In Noah Segan’s The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, Harry (John Turturro) cares for his bed-ridden wife and makes a not-so-honest living taking from unsuspecting New Yorkers and tourists, but finds himself in way over his head when he steals from the wrong person and has to go to great lengths to retrieve what he took and sold before the collateral damage comes down on the people he loves most.
Awards Buzz spoke with Segan about the advantages and challenges of shooting a film like this in New York City:
“You’ve got to meet the city where the city is, and the beauty of it is that, when you’re with John Turturro, you’re with Giancarlo [Esposito], you’re with Steve [Buscemi], the city meets you. Because they are the city. They are woven into the city. I think if you’ve got a great crew and you got these great people, you can stroll around, do your thing, everybody in New York’s already doing their own thing, so people let you operate. There was a funny moment, we were stealing some shots on a subway and we had John, we had the camera, and we were pretty inconspicuous, but it’s still John Turturro and a movie camera. Nobody on the train cared, but two cops got on one stop and we thought, oh my gosh, we’re going to get tickets. They’re going to take the camera. They’re going to give us such a hard time. We all started sweating bullets and the train takes off and it stops at the next stop and the cops walk towards us and they walk right out the door. One turns to the other as they’re leaving and goes, oh yeah, I told you it was him!
He spoke to how Turturro isn’t really playing against type here since he doesn’t have a type:
“I think everything he does is so singular. There’s only one guy for a John Turturro role and it’s John Turturro. He’s so good that it could be any role. That’s the thing, it’s the chicken or the egg, is he so good because he can do anything or he can do anything because he’s so good? This is such a specifically working-class New York role, something that he can speak to on a personal level. He’s a caretaker, something he can speak to on a personal level. I think there is a lot of John in this, if only because he is such a decent, dignified guy that I think you ask somebody to play a criminal and you go, okay, but I need a criminal with decency and dignity. And they go, oh no, how do I do that? Well, John Turturro.”
Watch the video above to hear about his transition from previous projects to this film and what’s ahead for him as a filmmaker and an actor.
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York opens in New York and Los Angeles on October 23rd and nationwide on October 30th.
