Though John Turturro has led a storied career, there’s one director he regrets not being able to work with.
During a recent interview on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Emmy winner revealed he inadvertently passed on working with Stanley Kubrick, who had penned a role for him for the twisty erotic thriller Eyes Wide Shut, which was released posthumously in 1999.
“I didn’t turn down Stanley Kubrick, but Stanley Kubrick called me up for Eyes Wide Shut, and I was, like, shocked that he knew all about me,” the actor said, explaining that at the time he had just finished five years worth of prep for 1997’s The Truce, in which he portrayed Primo Levi.
“And he said, ‘I think you’re a terrific actor,’ and I said, ‘Well, thank you.’ He goes, ‘Well, you are,’” Turturro recalled. “I was like, ‘Well, I can’t walk around my house saying that to my wife, she’ll hit me over the head with a frying pan.’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m gonna send you a script and I hope you’ll like it.’ He goes, ‘You’ll like it.’”
During the phone conversation, The Shining helmer had questioned whether the timing of the project would align with the Severance star’s schedule, as he had heard he was aiming to direct a movie the following year. However, Turturro said he didn’t have the money to get the pic off the ground.
“He said, ‘I wrote this part for you.’ I didn’t say to him, ‘Whatever it is, I will do.’ But I was so excited. I said, ‘I’ll read it, and we’ll work it out.’ I was talking to him like a normal person,” The Batman alum explained.
In the end, Turturro said the collaboration didn’t pan out as he didn’t let the director know he would make the project by any means necessary. The Do the Right Thing actor alluded to the fact that Kubrick didn’t feel he was excited enough about the role.
“The next day, I heard I was unavailable, because I didn’t tell him: ‘No matter what.’ That’s it, and I didn’t know that at the time, and I just tried to be a regular [person],” he concluded. “So I would have liked to have worked with him just because I’m a big fan of his and see how I would have survived doing long takes.”
Turturro added that the role was for Nick Nightingale, the pianist ultimately portrayed by actor-turned-filmmaker Todd Field, whose character provides the critical password entry to Tom Cruise’s Dr. Bill Harford and faces a presumed untimely end for giving up the secret.
As mentioned, the now-widely lauded film had an arduous 400-day production (currently holding the Guinness World Record for longest continuous shoot) due to the filmmaker’s meticulous perfectionism, multiple reshoots and script changes. Kubrick died of a heart attack less than a week after showing his final cut to Warner Bros., with the studio later making alterations to fit the planned R-rated release.
Nicole Kidman and Cruise starred in the drama about a discordant couple; after Alice admits to having sexual fantasies about another man, Bill becomes obsessed with pursuing an extramarital affair, winding up at a covert sex club for the elite and quickly discovering he opened the door to a dangerous underworld in the process.
Watch the full interview below:
