Turkiewicz ’16 Looking to Strike Gold with ‘Stealing Pulp Fiction’

An idea struck Danny Turkiewicz ’16 while attending a midnight screening of Quentin Tarantino’s personal print of Pulp Fiction at the filmmaker’s own theater, New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles.

“I’ve never seen anything like that – people were cheering like the Rolling Stones were about to come on,” said Turkiewicz, of the evening about 10 years ago. He wondered aloud to his friend whether security was present to protect the valuable print. “He was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ It’s a small theater, so you could hear the film going through the projector. I was thinking I could go up to the booth and steal the print.”

Turkiewicz did not try to steal the print, instead opting to make his idea into a short film that he starred in with Cazzie David ’16 in 2022.

The short did well, and received good Letterboxd reviews, so he decided to make it feature length. He wrote, directed, and co-produced the film, which will be streaming on Apple and Amazon beginning June 27, and screening in select theaters in the coming weeks in Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, San Diego, Albany, and elsewhere.

“The short is just me and Cazzie sitting in a diner, because it was contained [due to] filming with COVID restrictions at the time,” said Turkiewicz. “I thought I could write a longer and better version with people sitting and talking at the diner, in different rooms and therapist offices. I added many other characters, like Jason Alexander’s character.”

Other veteran actors in the film include Jon Rudnitsky and Karan Soni.

One person not in the movie is Tarantino, who Turkiewicz tried to get, but was unable. Someone else is playing him in the movie.

Turkiewicz was excited when the beloved Seinfeld actor joined the cast, and seemingly not even with help from David’s father, Seinfeld co-creator Larry David. In fact, Cazzie met Alexander for the first time ever on the initial day of filming.

Turkiewicz has been working with David since their Emerson days. The two of them and Elise Kalani ’16, a co-producer for Stealing Pulp Fiction, made sketch comedy skits in college, and he directed episodes of their web series Eighty-Sixed.

“Everyone I met at Emerson, we all moved to L.A., and all did Emerson’s L.A. program in our last semester, and then moved out here,” said Turkiewicz. “For me, the biggest thing Emerson created was a community of fellow filmmakers.”

Along with David and Kalani, other Emersonians who worked on Stealing Pulp Fiction include executive producer Alex Morand ’16, executive producer Carly Kaplan ’16, actor and associate producer Matt Adams ’16, and extras sprinkled throughout the movie, said Turkiewicz.

The film also contains Easter eggs, such as fake movie posters of the next film Turkiewicz would like to make, Aliens in Aspen, which is about an alien invasion during the weekend of a destination wedding.

And while Stealing Pulp Fiction sounds like a dark comedy, there’s more to it, said Turkiewicz.

“It’s about ambition, love, and the delusion of thinking you want to do something, and what’s really important is often in front of you,” said Turkiewicz. “There’s a lot more layers to it than the hook of the movie’s title.”