John Turturro to adapt Philip Roth novel ‘Sabbath’s Theater’ for film (exclusive)

John Turturro is planning to adapt Philip Roth’s 1995 novel Sabbath’s Theater for film, having starred in a stage version he also co-wrote last year.

Speaking at Sarajevo Film Festival last week, Turturro said of his upcoming projects, “I have a couple of things I’m trying to do and get the right cast and funding for. We’ll see which one happens first.”

Turturro then spoke about Roth’s novel, about the exploits of a former puppeteer who takes pleasure in manipulating the people around him. Turturro adapted the book for stage with Ariel Levy, and played the lead role of Mickey Sabbath in the Signature Theatre Company production in New York last year.

“That’s something I’m going to adapt [for film],” said Turturro. “It’s really politically incorrect which appeals to be a great deal. I’m a big Philip Roth fan.” Turturro did not divulge further details of the film project at this stage. As an actor, he starred in 2020 HBO series The Plot Against America, adapted from Roth’s novel of the same name.

Turturro was in Sarajevo to accept the honorary Heart of Sarajevo award, and give a masterclass about his career.

Speaking at that event, he mentioned another film project of great personal relevance, related to his late brother Ralph Turturro, who died in 2022 aged 70.

“Mental health is a big part of my life,” said John in Sarajevo. “One of the projects I’ve been working on – I was a guardian of my older brother, who was a schizophrenic and was really smart and very perceptive.”

Again without revealing many details, Turturro suggested the project will try to give a different portrayal of mental health from its regular depiction. “Usually they tell the stories about the exception, the person who gets better,” said Turturro. “They don’t tell about the people who have to navigate the labyrinth of the mental health system. I know how difficult that is and how lonely it is for the person and the caretaker too.

“Those kind of stories are harder to tell because they’re not the exceptional story; but those are the stories that point to the people who are on the street or who can’t take care of them or have run away,” said the filmmaker. “It’s not a rarity – one out of five families experience this. Once my brother said, ‘you get a lot of your material from me’ – he wasn’t wrong.”

Having made his name in Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing and the Coen brothers’ Barton Fink, Turturro wrote and directed his first feature Mac, in which he also starred, in 1992.

He has subsequently directed five further features, including musical Romance And Cigarettes starring James Gandolfini in 2005, and most recently 2019’s The Jesus Rolls, in which he reprised the part of bowling fiend Jesus Quintana from the Coen brothers’ 1998 The Big Lebowski.

Barton Fink, Transformers memories

Turturro delighted the Sarajevo audience by revisiting his famous roles. “I thought it was ‘Bart and Fink’,” he said of Barton Fink, crediting the confusion to executive producer Ben Barenholtz’s pronunciation of the name. “When you have a shorthand you develop, you can push it, you can try things even if they’re wrong,” said Turturro of his partnership with the Coen brothers, having appeared in four of their films.

After the famous clip of the purple-clad Quintana licking his bowling ball in The Big Lebowski, Turturro was asked how the ball tasted. “I don’t remember – it tasted dusty, maybe?” laughed the actor. “I was just trying to make my friends laugh. [The Coen brothers] don’t to that many takes; we add all these little things that weren’t in the script. They figured I would maybe have a couple of ideas.”

Turturro has oscillated between film and television throughout his career, recently appearing in Apple TV+’s Severance and Amazon Studios’ Mr. & Mrs. Smith for the small-screen. “That’s where things seem to be – it’s harder to do movies,” said Turturro. “But I still love the two-hour form.”

“It’s harder now to get the deserved attention that certain filmmakers should have,” he expanded. “Certain films break out; I don’t think it’s easier. It is an individual thing to go see a certain director’s film – it’s a commitment to doing that.”

Turturro also recalled his experience as Agent Simmons in three Transformers movies, in which he had a peculiar partnership with director Michael Bay.

“I didn’t do any of those big films when I got offered them in the 90s,” said Turturro. “They offered me Transformers, one of my kids liked the toys and the cartoon, [and said] ‘you shouldn’t read it, you should just do it’. And I did.”

“I was inspired by Michael Bay, because he didn’t explain anything,” said Turturro, launching into a Bay impression – “‘You’ll understand it when you see the movie’.”

“So I basically imitated him,” continued the actor. “And he would get very upset – ‘you think this is a joke, this is a serious movie’ – based on a toy!

“Sometimes I would dig out the Transformer toy, and I would improvise. And he’d say ‘you can’t do that!’ And I would do it over and over again,” recalled Turturro. “I enjoyed it; I call it my electrical job. Normally what I do is plumbing, but that’s my electrical job. It’s more of a sketch approach; it’s like playing with kids.”

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