International Features Editor
The Big Lebowski – Jesus scene (1080p)
Veteran character actor and filmmaker John Turturro wowed audiences at the Sarajevo Film Festival on Wednesday with a masterclass on his expansive and eclectic career spanning film, television and theater. Speaking to a packed house at the Bosnian Cultural Center, the Brooklyn native provided insight into his most acclaimed acting work, which ranges from Do the Right Thing to The Big Lebowski to Barton Fink to the Transformers franchise, as well as his directing work on films like Romance and Cigarettes and Mac.
After the iconic Jesus Quintana bowling scene in The Big Lebowski played for the audience (to thunderous applause), Turturro said that Joel and Ethan Coen had seen him in Reinaldo Povod's play La Puta Vida, in which Turturro plays a homosexual pedophile. It was that role that would inspire them to cast him in The Big Lebowski as Jesus, a bowling rival of the lead characters played by Jeff Bridges, John Goodman and Steve Buscemi.
In the classic scene, in which Turturro's character licks a bowling ball before throwing a strike and challenging his opponents, Turturro admitted that he "just wanted to make his friends laugh" and that he didn't know the takes the Coen Brothers used in the scene would actually be used in the film.
