Giancarlo Esposito has revealed that he “hated” his Do the Right Thing co-star John Turturro during shooting – and expects the feeling was mutual.
The two actors co-starred in Spike Lee’s seminal 1989 film exploring racial tensions in a working-class Brooklyn neighbourhood. Esposito played Buggin’ Out, a fast-talking advocate for the civil rights movement, while Turturro portrayed Pino, the overtly racist son of an Italian pizzeria owner.
“I hated him on Do the Right Thing, to be honest with you, and he probably hated me to a certain extent,” Esposito recalled during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “But I loved him all in the same emotional feeling because I recognised him.”
The two actors have now re-teamed for a new crime movie, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, which opens in North America today (Friday October 30). And happily, their working relationship has thawed considerably in the intervening years.
“We were on the set of Pickpocket… and in the middle of a take, he took a deep breath,” Esposito said. “I knew he hadn’t forgotten his lines. He’s a consummate professional, as I am, but he just had to stop. And in the middle of a take, he stared into my eyes and said, ‘You’re my uncle. You’re my father. You’re my family.’ And it brought tears to my eyes because I felt the same way.”
Esposito continued: “We’re both Italian, and we’re linked somehow in our genetic structure, in who we are and where we come from. So he had to acknowledge that for a minute because he had this déjà vu of being in a room with all of his family.”
Do the Right Thing was a major critical and commercial hit when it was released in 1989, picking up two Oscar nominations, including one for Best Original Screenplay. Since then, its reputation as a defining American film of its era has continued to grow. In 1999, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as a work deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.
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