Aida Turturro (born September 25, 1962) is an American actress. Her career spans nearly forty years in film, television, and theatre, including recurring roles on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and The Blacklist. She is best known for her portrayal of Janice Soprano on the HBO drama series The Sopranos. She is active as a spokesperson for medical disorders, including diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
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Early life
Turturro was born in New York City on September 25, 1962 to Dorothy and Dominick Turturro. Her parents divorced less than two years later, and Turturro was raised on Manhattan's Lower East Side by her father and her stepmother.
She attended SUNY New Paltz, paying her tuition by cleaning houses.
Career
Turturro made her film debut as Grace in the 1989 comedy film True Love. She played several small roles in the films What About Bob? and Jersey Girl before mkaing her Broadway debut as Eunice Hubbell in the 1992 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin.
Turturro achieved her breakthrough role as Janice Soprano in The Sopranos. From 2000 to 2007, Turturro appeared in 72 episodes across 6 seasons. She gained critical acclaim for her role in the earned two nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2001 and 2007.
Following the end of The Sopranos, Turturro made her debut in Broadway musicals as Mama Morton, the prison matron in Chicago.
In 2009, Turturro returned to television, appearing in "Bite Me", a sixth-season episode of the NBC series Medium, playing Bobbi Catalano. Turturro also appeared in the eighth-season episode "Car Periscope" of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
In 2012, Turturro appeared in "Day of the Iguana", an episode of Nurse Jackie, which reunited her with her Sopranos co-star Edie Falco. She played Laura Vargas, the titular character's lawyer.
In 2013, Turturro appeared in the fourth-season episode "Drawing Dead" of Blue Bloods. The same year, she guest starred in several episodes of season 14 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Judge Felicia Catano. As of 2026, she has been brought back in either a guest and recurring capacity for nearly every season.
Turturro appeared as Maura Figgis, sister of gangster Jimmy "The Butcher" Figgis on the Fox police procedural sitcom, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The following year, Turturro appeared in "Il Mostro" in the 2017 season of Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.
Personal life
Turturro is the younger cousin of actors John Turturro and Nicholas Turturro.
Turturro has battled several medical disorders and spoken publicly about them. In 2001, she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and became a spokesperson for the long-acting insulin Lantus. She has rheumatoid arthritis and worked to raise public awareness of the disorder.
In 2018, Turturro was traveling to visit a friend in New York when she abruptly felt a strong pain in her heart. Despite being on the floor with pain, she denied her friend's request to call an ambulance and walked home. Eventually, she contacted a doctor, who referred her to a cardiologist. In an interview with People, she stated that, she went “to the doctor...and he's like, 'Yeah...you had a heart attack.'" She added that the cardiologist informed her that "88 to 90 percent" of her arteries were blocked. Turturro subsequently underwent a quadruple bypass surgery.