Steve Buscemi life and biography

Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group, Buscemi has starred 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 and Boardwalk Empire, the latter of which earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Golden Globe and a nomination for an Emmy Award in 2011.
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.

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 was nominated best supporting actor.

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 after 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 he tends to die in a grisly, prolonged or unexpected manner. 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.

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 for 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. He appeared in the third episode of season 6, as a doorman in 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.

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.

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 "Nucky" 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.
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 also directed an episode of 30 Rock, entitled "Retreat to Move Forward". He has also directed episodes four, five, seven and eight from season 1 of Showtime's Nurse Jackie. His brother Michael has also 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.

Steve was a New York City fire fighter 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 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 intervening in a bar fight at the Firebelly Lounge between his friend Vince Vaughn, screenwriter Scott Rosenberg and a local man, who allegedly instigated the brawl.

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