Steve Buscemi

Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi (born December 13, 1957) is an American pornstar actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theatre company The Wooster Group, 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, The Big Lebowski and Paris, je t'aime.
Since 2010, he has starred in the critically acclaimed series Boardwalk Empire, which earned him two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe, and a nomination 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).
==Early Life==
Buscemi was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Dorothy, 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, and Buscemi's mother was of part Irish ancestry. He has three brothers: Jon, Ken and Michael. Buscemi was raised Roman Catholic.
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.
Buscemi briefly attended Nassau Community College before moving to Manhattan to enrol in the Lee Strasberg Institute. In the early 1980s, Buscemi also worked as a firefighter for four years on FDNY Engine 55. After 9/11, Buscemi returned to Engine 55 and worked alongside other firefighters to sift through the rubble from the World Trade Center.
==Career==
===Acting===
His first role in a major motion picture was in the 1987 film Parting Glances, for which his performance in the role of Nick received praise. 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.
During 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, 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.
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 is Quentin Tarantino's 1992 film, Reservoir Dogs, a role that Tarantino wrote for himself.
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. Buscemi often plays characters that are neurotic and paranoid. He has appeared in a number of films by the Coen Brothers, in which his character 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 had worked with Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Jim Jarmusch, Robert Rodriguez, and Michael Bay on various occasions.
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 Soprtano's cousin and childhood friend, Tony Blundetto, a role for which he was nominated an Emmy Award. 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." 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.
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 counsellor, in The Adventures of Pete and Pete, as well as guest-starring in Miami Vice in 1986. Buscemi was rumoured to be considered for the role of The Scarecrow in Joel Schumacher's proposed fifth instalment of the first Batman franchise, Batman Triumphant, before Warner Bros. cancelled the project.
In 2004, Buscemi appeared in the music video for Joe Strummer's cover of the Bob Marley track "Redemption Song". The video is shot after Strummer's death, and Buscemi appears beside a graffiti portrait of Strummer.
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. He plays 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 in 2011.
In 2011, he hosted Saturday Night Live on NBC.
===Directing===
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.
==Personal Life==
Buscemi was a New York City firefighter from 1980 to 1984, with Engine Company #55 in the Little Italy section of New York. He showed up at his old firehouse the day after the World Trade Center tragedy in New York to volunteer, working twelve-hour shifts for a week after the terrorist act, and digging through rubble with his old comrades looking for missing firefighters. Buscemi was arrested, along with eleven others, on May 25, 2003 while protesting the closing of his former firehouse.
Buscemi pronounces his name as "Bu-semmy", but the correct Sicilian pronunciation is "Bu-shemmy". He once said about the pronunciation of his name: "I had to go to Sicily to find out I pronounce my name wrong."
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 friend Vince Vaughn, screenwriter Scott Rosenberg and a local man, who allegedly instigated the brawl.
Buscemi, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, is adamant about not altering his 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."
==Filmography==
Year 	Title 	Role
1985 	Tommy's 	Tommy
1986 	The Way It Is 	Raphael/Willy
1986 	Parting Glances 	Nick
1986 	Sleepwalk 	Worker
1987 	Kiss Daddy Goodnight 	Johnny
1987 	Heart 	Nicky
1987 	No Picnic 	Dead Pimp
1988 	Call Me 	Switchblade
1988 	Heart of Midnight 	Eddy
1988 	Arena Brains 	
1989 	Slaves of New York 	Wilfredo
1989 	Mystery Train 	Charlie the Barber
1989 	Lonesome Dove 	Luke
1989 	New York Stories 	Gregory Stark
1989 	Borders 	Ted
1989 	Bloodhounds of Broadway 	Whining Willie
1990 	Tales from the Darkside: The Movie 	Bellingham
1990 	Force of Circumstance 	
1990 	King of New York 	Test Tube
1990 	Miller's Crossing 	Mink
1991 	Life Is Nice 	Convenience Store Clerk
1991 	Zandalee 	OPP Man
1991 	Barton Fink 	Chet
1991 	Billy Bathgate 	Irving
1992 	In the Soup 	Adolpho Rollo
1992 	Reservoir Dogs 	Mr. Pink
1992 	CrissCross 	Drug Dealer
1993 	Twenty Bucks 	Frank
1993 	Rising Sun 	Willy "The Weasel" Wilhelm
1993 	The Adventures of Pete & Pete 	Phil Hickle
1993 	Ed And His Dead Mother 	Ed Chilton
1993 	Claude 	Danny
1993 	Tales from the Crypt 	Ike
1994 	The Search for One-eye Jimmy 	Ed Hoyt
1994 	The Hudsucker Proxy 	Beatnik Barman at Ann's 440
1994 	Airheads 	Rex
1994 	Pulp Fiction 	"Buddy Holly" waiter
1994 	The Last Outlaw 	Former Confederate Soldier and Outlaw Philo
1994 	Floundering 	Ned
1994 	Somebody to Love 	Mickey
1994 	Who Do I Gotta Kill? 	
1994 	Felidae 	Archie
1995 	Billy Madison 	Danny McGrath
1995 	Living in Oblivion 	Nick Reve
1995 	Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead 	Mister Shhh
1995 	Desperado 	Buscemi
1996 	Fargo 	Carl Showalter
1996 	Escape from L.A. 	Map to the Stars Eddie
1996 	Trees Lounge 	Tommy
1996 	Kansas City 	Johnny Flynn
1997 	Con Air 	Garland "The Merietta Mangler" Greene
1997 	The Real Blonde 	Nick Reve
1998 	The Big Lebowski 	Theodore Donald "Donny" Kerabatsos
1998 	Divine Trash 	Himself
1998 	The Imposters 	Happy Franks
1998 	The Wedding Singer 	David "Dave" Veltri
1998 	Armageddon 	Rockhound
1998 	Louis & Frank 	Drexel
1999 	Big Daddy 	Homeless Guy
2000 	28 Days 	Cornell Shaw
2000 	Animal Factory 	A.R. Hosspack
2001 	Ghost World 	Seymour
2001 	Final Fantasy: The Spirts Within 	Neil Fleming
2001 	They Grey Zone 	"Hesch" Abramowics
2001 	Double Whammy 	Jerry Cubbins
2001 	Domestic Disturbance 	Ray Coleman
2001 	Monsters, Inc. 	Randall Boggs
2002 	Deadrockstar 	Reverend Ely
2002 	Love in the Time of Money 	Martin Kunkle
2002 	Mr. Deeds 	Crazy Eyes
2002 	13 Moons 	Bananas The Clown
2002 	The Laramie Projects 	Doc O'Connor
2002 	Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams 	Romero
2003 	Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over 	Romero
2003 	Coffee and Cigarettes 	Waiter (Segment "Twins")
2003 	Big Fish 	Norther Winslow
2002-2006	The Sopranos 	Tony Blundetto/Man
2004 	Home on the Range 	Wesley
2005 	Lonesome Jim 	
2005 	The Island 	James McCord
2006 	Art School Confidential 	Broadway Bob D'Annunzio
2006 	Monster House 	Nebbercracker
2006 	Charlotte's Web 	Templeton the Rat
2006 	Dust to Dust: The Health Effects of 9/11	Narrator
2007 	I Think I Love My Wife 	George Sianidis
2007 	Paris, je T'aime 	The Tourist (Segment "Tuileries")
2007 	Interview 	Pierre Peters
2007 	I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry 	Clint Fitzer
2007 	The Simpsons 	Dwight
2007 	Delirious 	Les Galantine
2007 	Romance & Cigarettes 	Angelo
2007 	30 Rock 	Lenny Wosniak
2008 	ER 	Mr. Masterson
2008 	Igor 	Scamper
2009 	Rage 	Frank
2009 	John Rabe 	Dr. Robert Wilson
2009 	G-Force 	Bucky
2009 	The Messenger 	Dale Martin
2009 	Handsome Harry 	Thomas Kelley
2010 	Saint John of Las Vegas 	John Alighieri
2010 	Youth in Revolt 	George Twisp
2010 	Grown Ups 	Wiley
2010 	The Chosen One 	Neal
2010 	Pete Smalls Is Dead 	Bernie Lake
2010 	Boardwalk Empire 	Enoch "Nucky" Thompson
2011 	Portlandia 	Book Store Customer
2011 	Saturday Night Live 	Host
2011 	Rampart 	Bill Blago
2012 	On the Road 	TBA
2012 	Hotel Transylvania 	Wayne
2013 	Monsters University 	Randall Boggs
2013 	The Incredible Burt Wonderstone 	Anton Lovecraft
Category:Billy Madison