John Turturro

Small roles in diverse fare including Susan Seidelman's 1985 comedy Desperately Seeking Susan, Scorsese's 1986 drama The Color of Money, and Woody Allen's masterful Hannah and Her Sisters kept Turturro busy throughout much of the decade, but his breakthrough performance did not arrive until Spike Lee cast him as a bigoted pizzeria worker in 1989's Do the Right Thing. A scene-stealing turn in the Coen brothers' 1990 gangland drama Miller's Crossing followed, and in 1991 the Coens cast him as the titular Barton Fink, a performance which garnered Best Actor honors at the ~Cannes Film Festival. Subsequent lead roles were infrequent, although in 1992 he wrote, directed, and starred in Mac, a little-seen indie feature that won him a Golden Camera award for Best First Feature at the ~1992 Cannes Festival. Supporting turns in acclaimed offerings including Quiz Show, Clockers, and Grace of My Heart (in which he expertly portrayed a Phil Spector-like music producer) followed before Turturro's next starring role, in Tom DiCillo's whimsical 1996 comedy Box of Moonlight. In 1998, the actor again collaborated with both Lee and the Coen brothers, working with the former on He Got Game and the latter on The Big Lebowski. Also in 1998, Turturro wrote, directed, produced, and starred in Illuminata, a comedy set against the backdrop of a struggling, turn-of-the-century New York theater company. The following year, he again took on the New York theater, appearing in Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock, an exploration of the relationship between art and politics set in 1930s New York. ~ Jason Ankeny