Nobody F*cks with the Jesus

John Tuturro says Jesus Quintana may return in a spinoff movie. Nobody f*cks with The Jesus!

Story cutn'dapasted from (here):

There are four faces carved into my Mount Rushmore. And one is wearing a hair net.

His name is Jesus Quintana (not Hay-seuss, but Gee-zus), and in less than four minutes onscreen in The Big Lebowski, he solidifies his legacy as an icon of the bowling-movie genre.

Long ago, I decided I'd give up all of my beloved bowling trinkets for a chance to roll with any of the stars of The Big Lebowski. In particular, I wanted the pederast in the purple jumpsuit.

My wish came true when John Turturro -- who has made a career out of creating scene-hijackers like The Jesus -- came to town recently to promote Romance and Cigarettes, his way-out-there working-man's musical opening today in Dallas.

But as I wait at USA Bowl on a Sunday afternoon in November, surrounded by league matches and kids' parties, I have a case of the jitters. I am intimidated by The Jesus.

When Turturro strolls in wearing a pinstriped blazer and a stone-faced look, it doesn't ease my nerves. All business, he snatches up a pair of size 11s and a plastic foam coffee cup and strides toward Lane 1. The whole scene played out in slow-mo, just like it did in The Big Lebowski, the Gipsy Kings' version of Hotel California blaring in my head.

Ready or not, I am about to bowl [Cap'n's note: shoulda been ROLL] with The Jesus.

Life in the fast lane

If you've never seen The Big Lebowski, just know that the Coen brothers' classic is a beautifully twisted manifesto on life and bowling.

It's the kind of movie that inspires grown men to memorize every line and dress up like a lovable slacker named The Dude and to make pilgrimages to Lebowskifests across the country.

And, despite hygiene concerns, to give their bowling balls the slightest of tongue kisses, a la The Jesus.

Nearly 10 years after its release, the movie is more popular than ever. All of which makes Turturro's first bit of news a bombshell in Lebowski land: He's ready to resurrect The Jesus.

"I'm trying to get [Joel and Ethan Coen] to write a spinoff. ... I've got the whole plot. We just need to sit down and write it," he says. "Maybe this winter. Everybody wants to do it.

"Jesus wasn't explored enough, ya know," Turturro says with a sly smile.

From that moment on, the interview is a blur, sheer giddiness clouding my memory.

I know we talked about Romance and Cigarettes, and Turturro's impressive acting history, including his time at the Yale School of Drama and his role as a go-to guy for Spike Lee and the Coens.

We also talked a lot about sports.

"There's a connection between athletics and performance," says Turturro, 50, a Brooklyn boy who gave an Emmy-worthy portrayal of legendary Yankees manager Billy Martin this year in ESPN's The Bronx Is Burning. He has also played a pool shark in The Color of Money and a basketball coach in Spike Lee's He Got Game.

He even slipped into Howard Cosell's toupee for Monday Night Mayhem. "At some point I knew that I wasn't gonna be a pro athlete. ... My father wanted me to be a doctor or an architect ... but once I went to the theater, it seemed like something people could actually do. It seemed attainable."

In case you were wondering, we did bowl -- two games, actually. And that is where the true Turturro was revealed.

I got a glimpse of how this meticulous actor climbs into the capillaries of his characters and makes them so indelible:

Pino, the racist pizza maker in Lee's Do The Right Thing; Barton Fink, the tortured screenwriter and title character in the Coens' darkest of comedies; Herbie Stempel, the nerdy contestant in Quiz Show; Emilio Lopez, Adam Sandler's sneaky (and hilarious) butler in Mr. Deeds; and Ambrose Monk, the quirkier brother of TV's OCD detective Adrian Monk, just to name a few.

After each missed spare or gutter ball, Turturro's mind is racing. He retraces steps, asks questions, downloads information.

He hasn't bowled much since The Big Lebowski, and he is regretting it now.

"It's kind of depressing, ya know," he says, his New Yawk accent thickening. "When I was doing the movie, Steve [Buscemi] and I would go to this bowling alley with this guy, and just throw ball after ball. If I had been in the movie longer, I would have trained for months."

I didn't doubt him.

After only a few frames and a few pointers, Turturro throws his first strike. Four straight 9s follow -- all near-misses. I can see the wheels turning. The Jesus is finding his form.

Music man

In the second game, things really get rolling. I start with two strikes, and Turturro answers with two of his own in the third and fourth frames.

Turturro is focused on bowling, shrugging off most of my attempts at small talk and questions.

But I manage to ask about Romance and Cigarettes, Turturro's directorial baby that definitely begs explanation.

Like why is James Gandolfini (The Sopranos) singing Engelbert Humperdinck songs and dancing in the street? Or Susan Sarandon channeling Janis Joplin in a church? And why make the story of a bridge builder's midlife crisis into a musical?

"Music is the quickest form of emotional transportation there is," says Turturro, who began writing the story 10 years ago, as he prepared for Barton Fink. "The movie deals with how people use music to escape their circumstances or express how they feel. They may not dance in the street, but that's how people use popular music."

Gandolfini plays Nick Murder, who slobbers all over the trashy Tula (Kate Winslet). Sarandon is Nick's weary wife, who will not stand for her husband's little trip down infidelity lane. And the rest of the cast is a who's who of big-name actors and indie darlings -- Buscemi, Elaine Stritch, Christopher Walken , Amy Sedaris, Eddie Izzard and Bobby Cannavale, among others. Mary Louise Parker, Mandy Moore and Aida Turturro (John's cousin) are hilarious as Nick's eccentric daughters.

The Coens produced the film, which, despite its pedigree, almost didn't make it to the big screen.

Turturro waited two years for Gandolfini to be free from his Sopranos commitments. Then a studio merger cost the film its American distributor. Turturro eventually financed the film himself.

You get the idea: He's a determined guy, on the lanes and on the set.

"Early on, people thought I could only do certain kinds of things. It took people like Spike and the Coen brothers to allow me to play parts that showed my intelligence and other aspects of me," he says. "You're always typecast, even if you're a really great-looking guy. Movies are predicated on your bone structure. Your close-up. It's freeing for me, actually, because I'm not stuck in that way."

The Jesus returns

Late in the second game, Turturro hits his stride, loping down the lane and throwing darts at the pocket. After strikes in the eighth and ninth frames, he finishes with a 157, the highest score any celebrity has ever bowled against me.

But it wasn't good enough. Not for The Jesus.

Watching the end of the football game between the Giants and Vikings in the USA Bowl bar, Turturro continues to quiz me about bowling technique. About footwork. How to throw a hook.

I keep digging for more detail about The Jesus.

Who came up with the purple jumpsuit and matching socks?

"That was the Coens," he says. "The nail. The hair net, the beard, the licking of the ball: That was mine.

"Those are things they expected me to come up with. I knew I had to come up with all kinds of bull----."

And if the spinoff becomes reality, what can we expect then?

"If I come back as The Jesus," Turturro says, flashing the first hint of his character's bravado, "I will guarantee you my bowling will be really good."

Final score 157 John 183 Rick