Steve Buscemi
Buscemi at the Los Angeles premiere of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone in March 2013
Born	Steven Vincent Buscemi (1957-12-13) December 13, 1957 (age 55) Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Residence	Park Slope, Brooklyn
Occupation	Actor, director, writer
Years active	1985–present
Spouse(s)	Jo Andres (1987–present)
Children	Lucian (son)[1]

Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi (Italian pronunciation: [buˈʃɛmi] boo-SHEM-ee, /bʉˈsɛmi/ in the actor's personal preference and habit;^[2] born December 13, 1957) is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group,^[3] Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films, including New York Stories, Mystery Train, Reservoir Dogs, Desperado, Con Air, Armageddon, The Grey Zone, Ghost World and Big Fish; and the HBO television series The Sopranos. He is also known for his appearances in many films by the Coen brothers: Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo and The Big Lebowski.

Since 2010, he has starred in the critically acclaimed series Boardwalk Empire, which earned him two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe, and two nominations for an Emmy Award. He made his directorial debut in 1996, with Trees Lounge, in which he also starred. Other works include Animal Factory (2000), Lonesome Jim (2005) and Interview (2007). He has also directed numerous episodes of television shows, including; Homicide: Life on the Street, The Sopranos, Oz, 30 Rock and Nurse Jackie.

Early life [edit]

Buscemi was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Dorothy (née Wilson), who worked as a hostess at Howard Johnson's, and John Buscemi, a sanitation worker and Korean War veteran. Buscemi's father was of Italian descent; his ancestors were from the town of Menfi in Sicily. Buscemi's mother was of part Irish ancestry.^[4][5][6] He has three brothers: Jon, Ken, and Michael. Buscemi was raised Roman Catholic.^[7]

He graduated in 1975 from Valley Stream Central High School in Valley Stream, New York, a school which he attended with actress Patricia Charbonneau. In high school, Buscemi wrestled for the varsity squad and participated in the drama troupe, at the time directed by Mr. Lynne C. Lappin. Buscemi's 1996 film Trees Lounge, in which he not only starred but served as screenwriter and director, is set in and was largely shot in his childhood village of Valley Stream.^[8] He worked in Alexander's department store in Valley Stream as well.

Buscemi briefly attended Nassau Community College before moving to Manhattan to enroll in the Lee Strasberg Institute. In the early 1980s, Buscemi also worked as a firefighter for four years on FDNY Engine 55.^[9] After 9/11, Buscemi returned to Engine 55 and for several days worked 12-hour shifts alongside other firefighters to sift through the rubble from the World Trade Center. In 2003 he also gave a speech supporting higher wages for firefighters at a union rally. ^[10]

Career [edit]

Acting [edit]

His film debut was in the 1986 film Parting Glances, in which he portrayed Nick. Other early films include Slaves of New York in 1988, and Tales from the Darkside, a 1990 film with three segments. Buscemi starred in the first segment, playing Bellingham, a college student who orders a mummy and unleashes it on fellow college students played by Christian Slater and Julianne Moore.

In 1990, Buscemi had a couple of additional crime roles. He played the henchman of Laurence Fishburne named Test Tube in Abel Ferrara’s King of New York. He also played Mink in the Coen Brothers' Millers Crossing. Although he had to audition twice for this role,^[11] it marked the first of six of the Coen Brothers' films in which Buscemi appeared. Before his work with the Coen Brothers, he played a small but important role in Jim Jarmusch's independent anthology film Mystery Train, released in 1989, for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Male.^[12]

In 1991, he played the bellboy, Chet, in the Coen Brothers film, Barton Fink. His first lead role was in 1992, where he played Adolpho Rollo in Alexandre Rockwell's In the Soup. Then he came to public attention for playing Mr. Pink in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 film, Reservoir Dogs, a role that Tarantino wrote for himself.^[11]

In 1995, Buscemi played suspected cop-shooter Gordon Pratt in the episode "End Game" at the end of a three-episode arc of Homicide: Life on the Street. He also had a role as Phil Hickle, Ellen's father and older Pete's guidance counselor, in The Adventures of Pete and Pete, as well as guest-starring in Miami Vice in 1986. Buscemi was rumored to be considered for the role of The Scarecrow in Joel Schumacher's proposed fifth installment of the first Batman franchise, Batman Triumphant, before Warner Bros. cancelled the project.^[13]

Buscemi in 1996

Buscemi's other most notable character roles include Garland Greene in Con Air, Rockhound in Armageddon, Randall Boggs in Monsters, Inc., Donny in The Big Lebowski, Carl Showalter in Fargo, Norther Winslow in Big Fish and Seymour in Ghost World, for which he won several awards.

He often plays characters that are neurotic and paranoid. He has appeared in a number of films by the Coen Brothers, in which his characters tend to die in grisly, prolonged or unexpected manners. He has frequently appeared in Adam Sandler films such as Airheads, Billy Madison, The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy, Mr. Deeds, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and Grown Ups. He also has worked with Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Jim Jarmusch, Robert Rodriguez, and Michael Bay on various occasions.

He has said of his work "I don’t think of myself as having a career. I think of having jobs. When I work, I want to have good jobs. I want to do interesting films. I also want to make a living. You don’t always work on the things that you can put your heart into, so it’s good to work on things that you can get into one hundred percent."^[11]

In 2003, Buscemi made a brief celebrity guest appearance as himself on the long-running Fox animated television show The Simpsons in the episode "Brake My Wife, Please". Most recently, Buscemi provided the voice for Dwight, a bank robber whom Marge promises to visit in jail if he turns himself in to the authorities. This episode, entitled "I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", originally aired on October 14, 2007.

In 2004, Buscemi joined the cast of The Sopranos as Tony Soprano's cousin and childhood friend, Tony Blundetto, a role for which he was nominated an Emmy Award.^[14] Buscemi had previously contributed to the show as director of the third season episode "Pine Barrens", which was one of the most critically acclaimed episodes of the series, and the fourth season episode "Everybody Hurts."^[15] He appeared in the third episode of season 6, as a doorman in the afterlife, which is portrayed as a country club, in Tony Soprano's dream. He returned to direct the episodes "In Camelot", the seventh episode of season five, and "Mr. & Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request...", the fifth episode of season 6. He also appeared in the music video of the Bob Marley track cover of Joe Strummer's (who died before it was shot) "Redemption Song" with a graffiti portrait.

In 2002, Steve contributed to Lou Reed's concept album The Raven with the song "Broadway Song", and poems "Old Poe" and "The Cask".

Buscemi currently stars in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, playing Enoch "Nucky" Thompson (based on Enoch L. Johnson), a corrupt Atlantic City politician who rules the town during the Prohibition era. Buscemi won a Golden Globe award for best lead actor in a drama series and hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live in 2011.

Directing [edit]

Buscemi has worked extensively as a writer and director since making his debut feature during the 1990s. His directorial credits include:

• What Happened to Pete (1992) (short film)
• Trees Lounge (1996)
• Animal Factory (2000)
• Lonesome Jim (2005)
• Interview (2007)

In addition to feature films, he directed episodes of the television shows Homicide: Life on the Street, four episodes of The Sopranos, as well as two episodes of HBO's prison-drama series Oz, entitled "U.S. Male" and "Cuts Like a Knife". He has also directed two episodes of 30 Rock ("Retreat to Move Forward" and "Leap Day") and six episodes of Showtime's Nurse Jackie. In the latter, his brother Michael played the character God in several episodes.

While scouting a location for a film, Buscemi visited the Philadelphia Eastern State Penitentiary. He found the building so interesting that he later provided the majority of the narration for the audio tour there.^[16][17]

Personal life [edit]

Buscemi was a New York City fire fighter from 1980 to 1984, with Engine Company No. 55 in the Little Italy section of New York. He showed up at his old firehouse the day after the 9/11 attacks in New York to volunteer, working twelve-hour shifts for a week, and digging through rubble looking for missing firefighters.^[18] Buscemi was arrested, along with eleven others, on May 25, 2003, while protesting the closing of his former firehouse.^[19]

Buscemi pronounces his name as "Bu-semmy", but the correct Italian pronunciation is "Bu-shehmy".^[20] He once said about the pronunciation of his name: "I had to go to Sicily to find out I pronounce my name wrong."^[2]

In April 2001, while shooting the film Domestic Disturbance in Wilmington, North Carolina, Buscemi was slashed and badly scarred on the face while at the Firebelly Lounge, intervening in a bar fight between his friends Vince Vaughn, screenwriter Scott Rosenberg and a local man, who allegedly instigated the brawl.^[21][22]

Buscemi, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, is adamant about not altering his famously misaligned teeth, saying "I've had dentists who have wanted to help me out, but I say, 'You know, I won't work again if you fix my teeth."^[23][24]

Buscemi was in an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, where he traced his ancestry back to 1834 Ralph B. Montgomery^[25]

Filmography [edit]

References [edit]

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Steve Buscemi

• Steve Buscemi at the Internet Movie Database
• Steve Buscemi at Emmys.com