You’ll read about actors preparing for roles by going to the gym, mastering a fake language, or learning magic tricks to make their performances more convincing. (Picture an actor doing all three for a single role—a Dothraki Houdini, can you imagine?) Over the course of his celebrated career, John Turturro has prepared for his roles through study—he watched Muhammad Ali dance in the ring for The Big Lebowski, just to cite one example—though his role in Noah Segan’s The Only Living Pickpocket In New York required the 69-year-old actor to also embrace his inner felon. In a new profile in The New York Times, Turturro discussed his training with “sleight-of-hand artist” Apollo Robbins to play Harry, the film’s eponymous cutpurse.
