If you want an idea of what director Michael Bay is like, watch John Turturro in "Transformers."

Turturro told SciFi Wire that he based his performance as a preening government agent in the movie after Bay. "It was mostly Jon Voight's ideas translated from my body," Turturro claimed about his co-star. "Michael Bay was a little bit of an inspiration I would say."

"Michael likes to improvise a little bit," Turturro explained. "Everyone got a chance to do that in certain situations but he encouraged me to improvise and do different things. He's very child-like himself and had a good sense of humor and a lot of energy so I kept looking at him and thinking, I should do it more like Michael Bay -- at least a little bit. I'd tell him sometimes, 'I was doing you.' He's such a narcissist that he was just seeing me through (him). So it's OK."

Turturro plays Agent Simmons, the head of a top secret military unit called Sector 7, who tracks down teenager Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) because he may hold the key to the ancient war between giant alien robots that has moved to Earth.

To prepare for the role, Turturro did some of his research for his character by talking to someone who made Bay very uncomfortable.

"His mother told me he was a very good boy," Turturro revealed. "You have to try to talk to the director's mother. That's my new theory about acting. When she showed up on the set, I talked to her at length. She said he was always good in school. He always drew. He always made these little films and he always loved baseball. Of course, he was a nervous wreck that I was talking to his mother, trying to find his weak spot."

"Transformers" opens in theaters on Tuesday, July 3.