Nicholas Turturro
Nicholas Turturro is an actor, born 1962.
The Spike Lee thread runs from 1991 to 2025. Nicholas Turturro Jr., born in New York in 1962, played Vinny in Jungle Fever, was in Mo' Better Blues, turned up as Walker in BlacKkKlansman in 2018 and as Frankie Da Lunatic in Highest 2 Lowest in 2025. More than three decades of one director calling the same actor back is a career in itself, and it is the part of his resume with the highest batting average.
Television is where most people know him from. He played Detective James Martinez on NYPD Blue, which brought two Primetime Emmy nominations for supporting actor in a drama, and later Sergeant Anthony Renzulli on Blue Bloods. He has a Screen Actors Guild win and an Independent Spirit nomination as well. What he is good at is a very specific thing: a New York register that sounds like an actual person from an actual borough, with real irritation underneath it, and no theatrical polish laid over the top.
The other lane is broad studio comedy, and there is a lot of it: The Longest Yard, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Zookeeper, Here Comes the Boom, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, voice work in Leo. It pays, it is undemanding, and it sits oddly next to the Lee films and World Trade Center. That is the character actor's bargain in plain sight, and both halves of it are on this page.
Movies (31)
- The Longest Yard (2005)
- Highest 2 Lowest (2025)
- Leo (2023)
- BlacKkKlansman (2018)
- First Sunday (2008)
- Zookeeper (2011)
- I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007)
- Here Comes the Boom (2012)
- Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015)
- Takers (2010)
- Recess: School's Out (2001)
- Jungle Fever (1991)
- Justice League Dark (2017)
- World Trade Center (2006)
- Hellraiser: Inferno (2000)
- Excess Baggage (1997)
- Angels Fallen (2020)
- TalhotBlond (2012)
- Super Cyclone (2012)
- Fear X (2003)
- The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Mystery of the Blues (1999)
- Mo' Better Blues (1990)
- Shadow Conspiracy (1997)
- Men Of Respect (1990)
- The Hillside Strangler (2004)
- The Search for One-eye Jimmy (1994)
- Pups Alone (2021)
- Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (2011)
- Freefall: Flight 174 (1995)
- Cosmic Slop (1994)
TV (5)
Where to start with Nicholas Turturro
Take the Spike Lee run in order. Mo' Better Blues and Jungle Fever are the early ones, and Vinny in the second is the performance that first showed what he could do with a small part and a bad attitude. BlacKkKlansman is the best film of the group by a distance, and Highest 2 Lowest proves the relationship is still live in 2025.
NYPD Blue is the reason he has a television career, and Martinez is a genuinely warm creation in a series that mostly ran on abrasion. World Trade Center is his straightest dramatic work.
For the other side of the ledger, The Longest Yard is the most watchable of the comedies. Skip most of the rest unless you are a completist; they use him well and ask him for nothing.