Fresh Off ‘Severance,’ John Turturro Tries Male Modeling

When John Turturro saw that the setting for Zegna’s runway show here was a grassy knoll, he wondered if he’d fallen into an Italian wormhole and landed back on the set of “Severance.”

“That was my first thought,” Mr. Turturro said backstage after the show, still bristling with energy from having just completed his first ever turn as a runway model.

See, Zegna’s verdant stage looked a lot like a set from Season 2 of “Severance,” which had its premiere on Friday. It’s not quite a spoiler to discuss this, as the nubby green landscape is visible in the season’s trailer. Still, Mr. Turturro, 67, the journeyman American actor who plays one of the metaphysically split Lumon Industries employees on the show, was not keen to reveal any more about where the show was heading.

So we left it at that. But, Mr. Turturro was happy to discuss his modeling cameo for 115-year-old Zegna. (For what it’s worth, the setting was designed to evoke the grassland where sheep graze: Zegna used the collection to introduce Vellus Aureum designs, which it boasts are made from the finest wool in the world. Grass, sheep, wool. Got it.)

“That was my virginal walk,” said Mr. Turturro, still dressed in the plunging V-neck sweater and swishy pleated trousers he sported on the runway. He had shed the va-va-voom tweed coat, and it was lying nearby.

A “Severance” outfit this was not. That show’s corporate cogs trudge about in blue suits and uninspired no-iron shirts — clothes that make them appear inoffensive to the point of being invisible.

In contrast, this masterful Zegna collection, designed by Alessandro Sartori, Zegna’s longstanding artistic director, demanded close inspection and a good bit of attention. Plaids were scaled up as if peered at through a microscope. And a corduroy suit, a men’s wear archetype about as old as Zegna itself, slouched like a nubbly bathrobe.

Peer closer: Yes, those were two button-up shirts trickily stacked on top of each other. (It may have been lost on Mr. Sartori, an Italian, but to American eyes, this is a layering move that calls to mind one person: Steve Bannon.) And the button on that sport coat was planted lower than usual. And yes, its lapels were beefier than the average, making the models, many of them gray-bearded and a good generation beyond the models you normally see in Milan, look like 1970s casino magnates you wouldn’t want to cross.

As Mr. Turturro walked his rookie walk — his coat easing back at the shoulders, his hands stuffed in his pockets, a slight smirk conveying that he was in command and unbothered — it was evident just how Zegna had won over the Davos set and the self-assured Hollywood types.

“You would feel that at my age you don’t get new experiences,” Mr. Turturro said after the show. “This was a new experience for me.” Certainly he was a long way from Lumon Industries.