Last summer, on the subway, the actor John Turturro would eye an open purse or a backpack swinging idly from a commuter’s shoulder. He would place his hand just above where a phone or a wallet nestled, then pull back.
“I would think, Well, I don’t want to get arrested,” Turturro recalled on a recent afternoon. “What was I going to say? That I was doing research?”
Turturro, 69, was doing research. As the star of “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” which opens Friday, he plays Harry, a career pickpocket. He spends his days caring for his wife and his nights lifting wallets, phones and jewelry, which he often pawns at a shop owned by a friend (Steve Buscemi).
Harry’s life is tenuous. Who even carries cash these days? And it becomes more precarious when he picks the wrong pocket. Harry is a man out of time and if the film, written and directed by Noah Segan, is a crime story, it is also a love letter to a disappearing New York, an analog city of warmth and grit.
To prepare, Turturro studied with Apollo Robbins, a sleight-of-hand artist who gave him tips and exercises. He mostly confined his practice to film sets, but on trains he was often tempted. “I came really close,” Turturro said. “I just wanted to feel the thrill, the nerves of what that would be.”
Luckily, Turturro, a star of several Coen brothers and Spike Lee movies, has other sources of excitement. He has received two Emmy nominations for his work on the current Apple TV series “Severance” and has a prominent role in Tom McCarthy’s film “A Statement,” which will be released next year, when he will return to Broadway in a production of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist play “Rhinoceros.” And in “Only Living Pickpocket,” he has that rare thing in his career, the absolute lead of a film.
“To carry the whole thing, that’s a big responsibility,” Turturro said, over lunch in Lower Manhattan.
At lunch, he had love and grief and wild delight to spare. Between bites of salad, Turturro, with that same unruly hair and intensity of gaze that make his stage and screen presence indelible, discussed grift, craft and care. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
How did you learn to pickpocket?
Apollo Robbins is like a concert pianist. I’m never going to be that. I mean, he could take my watch off and every single time I don’t feel it. He gave me exercises with coins to do and taught me how to bump someone. I kept practicing, mostly on set.
You actually pickpocketed people on set?
Oh yeah! I pickpocketed a lot of people. Sometimes they would catch me, but a lot of times they didn’t know.
Have you ever been pickpocketed?
My wife’s been pickpocketed. We were together, coming out of the movie, someone distracted her, went in her purse. I mean, I had my apartment robbed, but that was different. I put an air-conditioner in the window of a little studio, and the next day, I was robbed.
What appealed to you about “The Only Living Pickpocket”?
I read so many scripts and they’re so derivative. But this one, Wow. A person who’s never taken care of someone now realizes that’s what life is, to care for someone. His life has changed, the world has changed, his profession has changed and it just resonated with me. At a certain age, you know what loss is, you know what failure is.
Harry is a criminal, but he follows a code of honor. What’s that code?
He’s a criminal, but it’s nonviolent crime. He’s not wiping someone’s bank account out. There’s a book called “Whiz Mob” with interviews with pickpockets. A lot of these people came from broken families. So they tried to form a little group. If they got arrested, someone would bail them out. It was a living.
When we meet Harry, what motivates him?
Here’s a guy who’s trying to make amends for everything he didn’t do. I don’t think people change, but I do think people can grow. And it’s an unsung thing to care for someone. It’s isolating. My mom gave me so many things. Was she celebrated? No. And she probably was the most talented person in our family. It’s part of my work ethic, because if she didn’t get that opportunity, I am not going to waste that. So that was a big aspect of who Harry is.
Also he’s resisting change. He’s trying, but he’s resisting. He doesn’t have a cellphone.
Do you also resist technology?
I have a computer, I do certain things on it, there’s certain things I have trouble doing, and I’ll have someone teach me. I’ve written scripts on it, but I don’t read scripts on them.
You’re a lifelong New Yorker?
I was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Hollis and Rosedale, Queens. I went to school in New Paltz and it was a really great thing to get out of the city. It was very artsy at the time, a lot of hippies. Then I went to Yale Drama. But I’ve always come back. My mom was here. I’m the middle responsible child. And my wife didn’t want to move to Los Angeles. We discovered Park Slope, Brooklyn. That was a little oasis for us.
You shot mostly on location, in the outer boroughs and on active subway trains. What was that like?
Really invigorating because people were so warm and giving. You have to penetrate these neighborhoods that you don’t normally go into. Neighborhoods past Coney Island. I had my dressing room in a hair salon, in an apartment, in a pawn shop.
This is also a movie about aging, about realizing that the moment where you’re at the center has passed. Was that poignant for you?
There was something about this movie that just got me, but I don’t feel that way. I just had to put together a reel for some festival. I was watching myself younger. I have more energy, my hair is black, but I don’t think I’m better then than I am now. I’ve learned to distill things, I can’t maybe run as fast, but I can do other things better. I know I can hold the screen.
Has your relationship to your craft changed?
I don’t have to substitute as much. I know what it is to go through some really terrible things. When I’ve done certain plays, they’ve really tested me. Could I do Hamm in “Endgame”? Or Lopakhin? I just did “Rhinoceros,” and I was like, I don’t know if I can do this. When you’re able to do it, you feel like, OK, I’m still learning. You want to empty the tank when you can, because that’s an offering. I’m offering it to you and I hope you receive it. I’m not religious, but spiritually, I live for that.
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