# John Turturro on Nearly Robbing Someone to Practice for ‘The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,’ Fighting to Save His 2005 Musical ‘Romance & Cigarettes’ and the Knicks Championship

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/john-turturro-on-nearly-robbing-someone-to-practice-for-the-only-living-pickpocket-in-new-york-fighting-to-save-his-2005-musical-romance-cigarettes-and-the-knick/
- Published: 2026-11-02T18:46:47+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-02T22:36:13+00:00
- Original publisher: Variety
- Original article: https://variety.com/2026/film/awards/john-turturro-only-living-pickpocket-knicks-oscars-1236935365/
- Topics: Film

## Key points

- Turturro trained with a professional pickpocket for his new film.
- He came close to practising on a subway passenger, but stopped.
- He bought back and independently released *Romance & Cigarettes*.

## Summary

John Turturro stars in *The Only Living Pickpocket in New York* as an ageing thief caring for his disabled wife. To prepare, he trained with sleight-of-hand artist Apollo Robbins and practised on the film crew, but says he stopped short of stealing from anyone on the subway.

The 90-minute drama is written and directed by Noah Segan, with Steve Buscemi and Giancarlo Esposito also in the cast. Turturro also discusses the Knicks’ championship, his Emmy-nominated work on *The Night Of* and *Severance*, and his efforts to revive his 2005 musical *Romance & Cigarettes*, which he bought back and released himself after a studio change.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.