Photos: Southampton Playhouse Marks 20 Years of 'Romance & Cigarettes'
“I only direct stuff that I either co-wrote or wrote,” says actor/director/writer John Turturro. He brought his own personal 35mm copy of 2005’s Romance and Cigarettes to the Southampton Playhouse Thursday night where they hosted a 20th Anniversary screening.
“You have to have a story you want to tell personally. If you can’t find the right director, you do a short, which I did. It was personal to me. It’s a musical and it’s not a musical because it explores the characters internal soundtracks.”
The film stars the late James Gandolfini, Kate Winslett, Susan Sarandon and Turturro’s cousin Aida who also attended the screening and sat with John for the Q&A afterward with Playhouse Artistic Director Eric Kohn.
“Who doesn’t love musicals,” she said before the screening. “People are singing and dancing and that’s appealing,” she added. She then offered to burst into song in the Playhouse lobby. Something that doesn’t happen in this film. “I will do it right now, but I need lights and I need feathers.”
Both Turturros had fond memories of Gandolfini. “Whenever I worked with Jimmy,” Aida said, “he was like my brother from way, way back. Before this, before The Sopranos, we go back to Broadway in 1992. It’s not acting, you’re just hanging.”
John remembers the frustration Gandolfini had mastering the musical art form. “I have a lot of fond memories of him. He kicked a door in when he missed the first beat of the song,” he said with a laugh. “He was nervous but he was very musical. And he really enjoyed it. I think he was trying to escape the characters he’d been playing,” he added.
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