John’s first appearance in a major film was a small one – he worked as an extra in the Martin Scorsese film Raging Bull in 1980, starring Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro. Turturro’s next onscreen appearance was in The Exterminator 2 in 1984, not to be confused with The Terminator films of the same era. That same year, John made his Broadway debut, acting in Death of a Salesman.
Other theater performances included the title role of John Patrick Shanley's Danny and the Deep Blue Sea at the Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in 1983. The following year, Turturro won an Obie Award for his off-Broadway performance of the same play.
In 1985, Turturro married fellow actress Katherine Borowitz, who is sometimes credited in films as Katherine Turturro. In 1990, the couple welcomed the birth of their first son, Amedeo, and another son, Diego, in 2000.
John has collaborated with some of the industry’s most formidable directors. Spike Lee was impressed with John’s performance in Five Corners and chose him to play the explosive racist Pino in Do the Right Thing in 1989, which would become his breakout role. John was also cast in the 1985 comedy Desperately Seeking Susan, starring Madonna and Rosanna Arquette.
Turturro also starred in Martin Scorsese's 1986 drama The Color of Money and Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters also in 1986. In 1990, the Coen brothers cast John in Miller's Crossing, and in 1991 they cast him again in the lead role of Barton Fink, for which he won the Best Actor honors at the Cannes Film Festival.
In 1992, Turturro wrote, directed, and starred in the indie film Mac, which won him a Golden Camera award for Best First Feature at the 1992 Cannes Festival. He also starred in such films as Robert Redford’s Quiz Show in 1994, Clockers in 1995, Grace of My Heart in 1996, and Box of Moonlight in 1996. In 1997, John lost thirty pounds to portray former prisoner, writer, and Holocaust-survivor Primo Levi, in Francesco Rosi’s The Truce.
In 1998, Turturro played a flamboyant sex offender ironically named Jesus in Joel Coen’s The Big Lebowski. That same year Turturro appeared in Spike Lee’s He Got Game and also wrote, directed, produced, and starred in Illuminata, a comedy about a struggling York theater company. The film also stars his wife, Katherine Borowitz.
In 1999 Turturro returned to New York Theater, appearing in Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock. He teamed up again with the Coen Brothers one year later for O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000), playing opposite George Clooney and Tim Blake Nelson. In 2004, Turturro played the haunting alter-ego to Johnny Depp’s character in Secret Window.
That same year he received an Emmy Award for his guest starring performance as Brother Ambrose Monk in an episode of the detective series Monk in 2004.
Most recently, Turturro starred in Robert De Niro’s The Good Shepherd (2006), alongside De Niro, Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, and Joe Pesci.
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