John Turturro Turns Down 'The Penguin' Role Over Violence Concerns
John Turturro Turns Down 'The Penguin' Role Over Violence Concerns
In a revealing interview, John Turturro shared why he chose not to return as Carmine Falcone in the upcoming series 'The Penguin.'
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According to Turturro, his decision was influenced by the portrayal of violence towards women in the show, which he found unsettling. This stance is not new for Turturro; he has always been vocal about his discomfort with such themes in his projects.
That's actually a very respectable stance to take. Good on him. That being said, the episodes out so far don't really have that much violence towards women so maybe there will be some kind of scene in the future? The only thing I could think of was the torture Sophia endured in Arkham but I would classify that as only violence and not violence towards women personally.
I think they probably wanted him to do things he didn't want to do. Not sure if they'll have someone else fill that role in his stead (not casting-wise, but committing the same acts).
I think the position is understandable, but dumb. Bad guys in media should be allowed to do bad things. It's not like he's playing a protagonist that you're supposed to relate with or cheer for or anything.
What next? Should we keep bad guys from killing people too?
Mark Strong already played the character in flashbacks and based on where the story is now, I don't see the character returning.
Spoilers for episode 4/5
The last episode ended with Sophia rejecting the Falcone name and taking her mother's maiden name. Similarly we've already seen in a flashback her mother killed and another character implied that her father hanged her. (And framed Sophia as The Hangman.)
So while the character was clearly violent, we don't see him doing the violence directly, but maybe the implication is enough. (Although, then why play a gangster.)
The episode with the character in question aired two or three weeks ago.
I haven't started the show yet
I hope you enjoy it when you do watch it, because so far it's a banger
Its probably in response to the normalization of rape and sexual violence towards women that's becoming more common in television. Just look at Game of Thrones. I actually wish more actors stood by this principle.
I haven't seen GoT but I bet its issue was more that they were going for a morally gray tone which sort of boxes the viewer into picking people to root for who do bad things. Succession, a show which I did watch, sort of put viewers in a similar boat.
I'd blame porn and incel content more than entertainment media for this issue.
We're both using shitty examples lol, I haven't watched Succession myself.
It's more of a case of catering to those who are submerged in the point and incel culture. The point I was trying to make with Game of Thrones was that it had a lot of gratuitous nude scenes. A good chunk of them were rape scenes. And it only showed that. No real comment on how these scenes impacted the characters involved or the overall story. It was practically a porno with a really good storyline. Contrast that with its newer prequel show (House of the Dragon) where instead of showing the actual rape they had the woman recounting the experience and being fully clothed and visibly upset at the whole ordeal. The point I'm trying to make is there is a good way of showcasing sexual violence and a bad way. It sounds like John Turturro found this one to be a bad one.
The character in the Penguin chokes a women for a second. That's the extent of it. Turturro did way worse in The Batman.