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NEW! TV Guide Article about The Sopanos Season 5

The Protest King?

Buscemi Arrested in Firehouse Protests

May 25, 2003, 3:02 PM EDT

At least 21 people were arrested today as six firehouses in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan shut their doors in an effort to help the city close its budget gap.

At Engine 204 in Cobble Hill in Brooklyn about 100 residents chanted and formed a human chain around the the two-story, red brick firehouse on DeGraw Street this morning.

As 9 a.m. - the closing time set by the city - approached, Buscemi locked arms with 15 others.

Marian Fontana, the widow of firefighter David Fontana - who was killed at the World Trade Center - used her husband's key to allow protesters inside.

They remained there for an hour, reportedly being treated to pizza by the firefighters, before 12 were led away in plastic handcuffs.

Fontana was not arrested, although she wanted to be.

All 20 were released after being charged with criminal trespass and disorderly conduct, charges that carry a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $250 fine. Court hearings were scheduled for June 30.

Police Capt. Thomas Harris said the protesters, who included actor Steve Buscemi, State Rep. Joan Millman and City Council member Bill DiBlasio, were arrested at the request of the fire marshal, for criminal trespass on department property. The 9/11 widow was not taken into custody.

The closures officially took effect at 9 a.m., but not all the vehicles are out and many protestors said they will remain at the houses to prevent them from leaving.

"This is not the time and this is not the place. The firehouses must remain open," said Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. "They say cut back, we say fight back."

Protestors also rallied at some of the other firehouses, as firefighters packed their cars and drove off.

Closing the firehouses and shutting down the three units will save the city $6 million a year as it tries to bridge a $3.8 billion budget gap, the Bloomberg administration has said. Firefighters from closed houses are being reassigned to other areas.

Critics contend longer response times will risk lives.

The city contends that population shifts and other factors made the firehouses unnecessary, and that emergency response times, measured in seconds, will not be adversely affected.

"Unfortunately, we cannot afford everything. ... It's the best compromise we can make," Bloomberg said Sunday at Memorial Day parade in Queens.

On Being Arrested

He was on a break from filming a "Sopranos" episode when we caught up with him earlier this week. But in addition to not being allowed to talk about the role, he didn't want to. Asked whether he had ever been arrested before, the 45-year-old actor, who was once a firefighter, said, "It was the first time I'd been arrested for demonstrating."

We could swear that we heard chuckling at the other end of the phone line.

Oh?

"But it's, y'know, a long story," Mr. Buscemi said.

Oh?

"When I was young" — this turned out to be 16 or 17 years old — "it was just a stupid thing I was doing with my friend. We got kicked out of Burger King, and the guy said, `Don't come on the property.'

"We went to get my friend's car in the parking lot, he grabbed me and called the cops. I was arrested for criminal trespass."

This was the same thing, Mr. Buscemi noted, he was arrested for Sunday.

As for why he has become so involved with the Fire Department — speaking out at news conferences and rallies — Mr. Buscemi recalled 9/11.

"These guys were really devastated, and 20 months later, it's still there," Mr. Buscemi said. "Some of them are just now seeking counseling."

"The Fire Department has given so much already," Mr. Buscemi said. "We shouldn't be asking them at this time to be making more sacrifices."

Baldwins, Banderas, Asner, Buscemi take sides as SAG-AFTRA vote nears

HOLLYWOOD -- Both sides have been scrambling to attract high-profile endorsements for and against the SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television & Radio Artists) merger two weeks before ballots begin hitting member mailboxes.

Proponents of the proposed "consolidation and affiliation" have snagged recent endorsements from Alec and Billy Baldwin, Antonio Banderas, Tyne Daly, James Gandolfini, Melanie Griffith and Susan Sarandon. Daly had originally supported the anti-merger SaveSAG side but switched last week.

Asner, Buscemi against

New endorsements against the deal have come from Ed Asner, Steve Buscemi, Angie Dickinson, Dennis Hopper, Jack Klugman, Martin Landau and Donald Sutherland. Asner, who served two terms as SAG prexy from 1981-85, becomes the fifth former SAG president to oppose the merger along with William Daniels, Charlton Heston, Howard Keel and Kathleen Nolan.

Current SAG prexy Melissa Gilbert supports the deal along with former SAG presidents Patty Duke, Barry Gordon, Richard Masur and William Schallert.

Ballots out June 9

Campaigning is expected to intensify before 175,000 ballots go out on June 9. A telephone polling firm hired by SAG and AFTRA called hundreds of members last week to ask whether they support the deal.

The proposal would create an umbrella Alliance of Intl. Media Artists with affiliates for actors, broadcasters and recording artists. At least 60% of voters in both unions must approve.

Merger backers contend the unions need to combine to enhance their clout at the bargaining table against the mega-congloms, avoid jurisdictional disputes and operate more efficiently. Opponents have argued this combination won't add to the power of actors but will instead create more bureaucracy and cause SAG to lose its autonomy.

© 2003 Reed Business Information © 2003 Variety, Inc.

Stars deliver anti-war petition

OSCAR winner Jessica Lange was among a clutch of Hollywood stars today who helped deliver an anti-war petition - signed by more than 1 million people - to the US mission to the United Nations.

Lange was joined by Ethan Hawke and Steve Buscemi in leading a small group of protesters to the mission in New York, where they handed over the petition which called for a tougher UN inspection regime in Iraq to replace the threat of military action against Baghdad.

"I do not want my children to inherit the legacy of this war," Lange said.

"Americans are a moral people and that requires that we do not let our government lie to us about the righteousness of our cause.

"This war will not serve the basic goodness of the American people and this is not the moral compass we can allow ourselves to be directed by," Lange said.

The signatures for the petition were gathered worldwide over the internet in just five days by a lobby group, Moveon.org, which is part of a peace coalition known as Win Without War.

Copies of the entire petition, which included 600,000 US signatories, were handed to all 15 members of the UN Security Council, ahead of a key vote this week on whether to set Iraq a specific deadline to disarm or face war.

"We are calling on the world's second superpower, the general public, to rise up and tell their governments ... that we can contain and control Saddam Hussein without war," said Tom Andrews, the national director of Win Without War.

"We want to give the UN inspectors more time to do their job. It is not too much to ask," Andrews said.

Hollywood has lent a publicity-generating voice to the anti-war movement in the United States, specifically through its own lobby group, Artists United to Win Without War.

There has been speculation that anti-war actors and actresses will use the upcoming Oscars ceremony as a forum to put their message across.

"I hope they do. I think that would be fun," said Ethan Hawke, who rejected the suggestion that the anti-war movement was unpatriotic.

"I'm proud to be an American," he said. "That's why I'm here. I want to go on being proud of being an American."

Firefighters: Show us the Money

October 11, 2002

A relentless rain did little to dampen the mood of thousands of firefighters rallying for higher wages in Central Park Friday, their anger stoked by a profanity-laced speech from bad-boy comedian Denis Leary.

“Take the 11 percent and stick it ... , Mr. Mayor,” Leary said, delighting the soaked crowd.

“I’m tired of presidents, governors, senators, politicians, getting your pictures taken at —— wakes and funerals. Actions speak louder than words, ” he said.

The firefighters union Thursday rejected of a contract offering an 11.5 percent raise over 30 months.

The union’s executive board had approved the agreement in August of last year — before the World Trade Center attack the following month that left 343 members of the fire service dead.

Leary, who lost his cousin, firefighter Jerry Lucey, in a warehouse fire in Worcester, Mass., in 1999, said the public did not understand how underpaid firefighters were.

“These guys shouldn’t have to worry about second and third jobs and their kids’ tuition, and they should be able to see their kids,” Leary said.

The rally was a prelude to Saturday’s memorial service for fallen firefighters at Madison Square Garden, expected to draw emergency workers from around the nation.

While the East Meadow was a sea of umbrellas and rain slickers, the rally clearly fell short of the turnout expected by the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

“This is just a little water,” said the Stephen Cassidy, president of the union. “We’ve been through much more. Let’s get a raise.”

Many of the protesters carried placards, including one that read “I’m a New York City firefighter. I can’t afford an umbrella.” Another sign read, “A million thanks won’t pay a mortgage.”

Speakers included politicians, widows and celebrities. Actor Steve Buscemi, who once worked at Engine 55 in Manhattan, got a particularly warm welcome.

“We could never thank you enough,” Buscemi yelled to the crowd from a podium inside the park at 98th and Fifth Avenue. “We can never pay you enough.”

Firefighters, who after five years on the job make about $59,000 annually including overtime and some benefits, said they just wanted to be compensated fairly.

“I’m out here because we need a raise,” said Frank Doherty of Ladder Company 162 in Queens. “The city always has excuses why not to give us one. We’re out here to tell them the excuses are over.”

Marian Fontana, the widow of firefighter David Fontana and president of the Sept. 11 Widow and Victims Family Association, told the crowd how she and her husband struggled to survive on a firefighter’s salary.

She drew rousing applause when she called New York City’s firefighters “the underpaid soldiers on the front line” in the war against terrorism.

The city’s deepening fiscal crisis — which has even included talk of possibly closing select fire companies — may make any resolution tough to come by.

Cassidy said he would reopen talks with the city, but a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg held out little hope that anything would change.

“We will continue to negotiate in good faith, but the city’s fiscal crisis really limits what we can afford,” mayoral spokesman Jerry Russo said Friday. Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

The following story recently appeared in the Houston Chronicle. Note: There is one factual error. Steve was never directed by John Turturro. Living In Oblivion was directed by Tom DiCillo not Turturro.

Balancing his act: Quirky Steve Buscemi prefers 'indie' films but stays in blockbuster limelight

By BRUCE WESTBROOK
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

He's no leading man, but no problem.

Steve Buscemi has carved a career from his quirky looks and the dirty crooks he's played in all sorts of twisted films, from Fargo to Reservoir Dogs.

But nothing prepared the Brooklyn native for the hell he'd face in The Grey Zone.

Opening Friday, it's a Holocaust tale set in 1944 at Auschwitz, where Nazis cremated thousands of Jews. Buscemi, Mira Sorvino, David Arquette and others play the prisoners, who stage an armed revolt after suffering the torments of the damned.

"It's very powerful, moving and disturbing," Buscemi said. "It may not be 'entertaining' in a commercial way, but it's enlightening. We don't always have to be entertained when we go see films."

Yet Buscemi, 44, entertains more often than not, usually in small, low-budget "independent" films.

Though never Oscar-nominated, he's won two Independent Spirit Awards for his highly wired work in Reservoir Dogs and for playing a lonely vinyl record collector in the critically acclaimed Ghost World.

But praise won't pay the bills for Buscemi, who's married and has a young son.

"It's hard to make a living when you're just doing the kinds of films I really like," he said. "I'm an independent at heart, but for financial reasons I also do commercial films and work in the mainstream. I've tried to keep a balance between both worlds because they help each other."

Given the choice, he'd stick with stylized, inventive films such as Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing for the Coen Brothers, or gruesome crime caper Reservoir Dogs for writer-director Quentin Tarantino, who also hired Buscemi for Pulp Fiction.

But Buscemi spends just as much time in mainstream movies that are geared to megaplexes, from Mr. Deeds, Monsters, Inc. and Armageddon to Con Air and the recent Spy Kids 2: sland of Lost Dreams, for which he toiled in Texas.

Actually, he considers Spy Kids 2 -- a $30 million movie financed by Disney -- to be an indie film, too.

Films usually earn that label because they don't come from major studios, which tend to impose strict commercial standards. But Buscemi applies a more discerning definition.

"To me, it doesn't matter where the money comes from," he said. " 'Independent' is where a filmmaker can make the film he really wants to make, and he isn't compromised by having to cast it a certain way, change the ending or make it more commerical."

He believes that includes Spy Kids 2 writer-director Robert Rodriguez of Austin, who "has his own little studio there.

He shoots, he writes, he edits, and he does it without outside pressure, because he's been successful and knows how to work within a low budget."

Buscemi also made Desperado for Rodriguez, "a filmmaker I really admire. He has his hand in everything, even in the way (his films are) marketed."

Another indie writer-director he admires is The Grey Zone's Tim Blake Nelson. Also an actor, Nelson played innocent hayseed Delmar in O Brother, Where Art Thou? He made The Grey Zone for Lions Gate, which is not a major studio.

"That makes them an independent company to some people," Buscemi said. "But in fact, a lot of companies (on that level) are just ministudios, and they don't give their directors independence, either. But Tim really was able to make the film he wanted.

"Of course, you always have to compromise because of the budget, logistics and scheduling. But I don't think he compromised on any important issues."

Buscemi can identify with such concerns. He portrayed a passionate but struggling indie director in Living in Oblivion, and he's directed films of his own, such as Trees Lounge, and an episode of The Sopranos.

Next he hopes to direct Queer, based on William Burroughs' novel about a heroin addict in Mexico City of the 1940s. "I'm still trying to raise the money," Buscemi said of his pet project, which has been idling for five years.

Even indie film companies have turned it down. But Buscemi is heartened when a filmmaker such as Nelson gets his dream project off the ground.

"We all knew the gravity of this material," he said. "It's a very moving and important story."

Because of Nelson's unblinking look at Holocaust horrors, the film shoot was "disturbing," Buscemi said. Co-star Sorvino has said she was so depressed after making the movie that she had nightmares for weeks.

But on the set, the cast tried to offset the gloom by keeping a sense of humor.

"We had to," Buscemi said. "It naturally happens that you lighten the mood. And we had great dinners together and really bonded."

It also helped that Nelson was an actor turned director.

"Certainly a lot of my favorite directors have been actors," said Buscemi, who was directed by Stanley Tucci in The Impostors and John Turturro in Living in Oblivion. "They understand what actors go through. I guess I'm partial to them."

He feels Nelson made a film that, "while difficult to watch, makes our lives richer for having experienced it. It is important that we know this story, we remember it and we feel it."

October 11, 2002

Singing Ui's Praises

While driving down to New York City on Friday evening with the kids, my husband and I speculated about the weekend to come. We didn't quite know what to expect. The featured event was a play by Bertolt Brecht (good start), its cast one of the starriest ensembles to ever play off-Broadway (promising). Having secured our fourth row center seats the day the tickets went on sale, we were virtually guaranteed a good view of the action. However, we were unsure how accessible that action would be. The subject of the play, Hitler's rise to power told in allegory through 1930s Chicago gangsters, threatened to be dark and heavy. We pondered, "Could this many talented people possibly come together to produce a flop?" Well, if you've seen the film Mixed Nuts, you know the answer.

Happily, the National Actors Theater, a nonprofit troupe headed by the legendary Tony Randall, succeeded in pulling together one of the most riveting, thought-provoking, and yes, entertaining plays we've seen in years.

When we arrived at Pace University's Michael Schimmel Theater at about 7:00 PM on Saturday October 5, I was immediately struck by the humble, simple, urban college decor and atmosphere. There was no gold leaf, ornate carvings or chandeliers. Surprisingly, there were no uniformed security guards frisking us for contraband. There was none of the glitz or formality of Broadway that one would usually associate with the level of star power on the bill. But then again, the purpose of this show was not to make money. It was to help to revitalize that area of lower Manhattan that had been so devastated by the events of 9/11/2001.

Upon entering the auditorium, I was amazed at how small it was. The press release said it held 750, but it somehow looked smaller than that. We were seated along with my brother and his friend in the center of aisle B which turned out to be the fourth row due to the addition of one row of folding chairs and another or wooden benches in front of row A. My back was very glad we weren't in front.

Soon, a handsome gentleman wearing a stark white suit and smoking a cigarette, Ajay Naidu, took a seat on the side of the stage and just hung out there smoking and chatting with the audience. We were a bit confused. Was he in the show? Was he security, or the stage manager? After a few more minutes, he finally jumped up and took the mike at center stage. The curtain rose to reveal a row of actors, the main characters in the play. Ajay, playing The Barker as well as 3 other roles, introduced the cast of characters. The applause was very respectable for Charles Durning as Dogsborough and Chazz Palminteri as Roma, but the audience erupted with wild enthusiasm and cheers when Steve as Giuseppe Givola took center stage and put his arm around Ajay. His ovation was second only to Pacino's which of course was the loudest.

Steve's character, Givola, was the stand-in for Hitler's Propaganda Minister, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, arguably the most brilliant, fanatical figure in the Third Reich. He convinced a whole nation to abandon their ideals and embark on a frivolous conquest through Europe. He led millions to their destruction. He made a people believe in their Leader up to the bitter end. In short, Dr. Goebbels was a dark genius. Many who knew him felt that Goebbels was an embittered cynic with a repulsive personality. When he was seven years old, he suffered an inflammation of the bone marrow (osteomyelitis). A subsequent operation on his thigh proved unsuccessful. It resulted in a club foot that crippled Goebbels, making one leg a full two inches (5 cm) shorter than the other. He weighed little more than 100 pounds and stood at 5'4" (163 cm). While Steve is taller and a bit heavier, he managed to represent the physical characteristics of Goebbels well even down to the stiff-legged, pigeon-toed gate.

In fact, one of the most hilarious scenes in the play (believe it or not, it was peppered with comic moments) featured Steve as Givola, Pacino as Ui and Tony Randall as The Actor (who was brilliant, by the way). In the scene, Ui has hired The Actor to help him perfect his image and public speaking ability. The actor instructs Ui how to walk (toe-heel-toe-heel) and hold his hands and emote. At one point, Al is walking around the stage practicing his duck walk and Steve is following close behind with his teetering club footed limp. The Actor yells out "Genitals!" indicating that Ui should hold his hands folded over his crotch and Givola follows his lead, grabbing himself. It was hysterical, reminded me of the Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks sketch.

Even though Steve didn't appear much in the first half of the play, what we did finally see was well worth the wait. His character eventually replaces Roma as Ui's right hand man and is featured more as the play goes on. One of the highlights was at the end of the courtroom scene right before intermission. Steve sings a mournful refrain from a song titled Whitewash. He has a wonderful alto voice that we have heard here and there (Imposters, Con Air) but have always longed for more from him musically. It's interesting that his is the only song performed live in the show (there is a constant recorded musical score in the background). As the first act comes to a close, the curtain slowly lowers in front of him as he sings the last few bars. I was practically in tears.

Steve appeared on stage much more in the second act, and as I watched him and studied his wardrobe, I kept saying to myself, "He's looking like someone else here. But who?" He was wearing a light gray suit with a bow tie and fedora. He had a cigarette tucked in his lips for part of the time. It was evident though, that he wasn't inhaling. (I'm sure his son was happy about that.) Of course the leg was braced in this large orthopedic contraption. And then there was the finishing touch. The make-up included a pencil thin moustache. It finally dawned on me. John Waters! I never really could see the resemblance before, but WOW. He was a dead ringer for Waters.

I have to say that on the whole, I was completely thrilled with the show. The other stand-outs in the cast were, of course, Al Pacino, who despite his diminutive stature (we estimated he was about 3 inches shorter than Steve) is a powerhouse of acting presence whose booming voice easily filled that venue. Paul Giamatti, who you might know from the films Big Fat Liar and Man on the Moon, was another show-stealer. Tony Randall was hilarious and brilliant in his one scene, wished there was more of him. Everyone else did a fine job as well.

The set design was rather sparse, but there were a few very interesting touches like a huge projection screen that served as a backdrop for video images and stills. And at one point in the show, Al Pacino actually rips down the tattered old red curtains framing the stage.

We definitely got our money's worth, all $115 per ticket! Evidently, everyone else felt the same way because the standing ovation at the end seemed to go on for a very long time. I noticed as the actors were leaving the stage, Steve made a point of taking Charles Durning's arm to make sure he got off the platform safely. What a sweetheart.

The show was super long, over 3 hours, ending at close to 11:00 PM. We were told we could hang around after the show for 1/2 - 1 hour or so to try to talk to Steve, but we were all exhausted from our day at the Hayden Planetarium and Central Park. We also had to get back to our hotel to discharge the babysitter, so we ended up just leaving. On our way out, we did see a few other celebrity faces who were in attendance in the audience. The only face I could match with a name was that of Jake Gyllenhaal who is currently starring with Dustin Hoffman in the film, Moonlight Mile.

On our walk back to our hotel, the play provided a lot of fodder for discussion. We all realized that while we knew quite a bit about the Holocaust and the end of Hitler's rein of terror, we really didn't know all that much about the history of his rise to power. I felt like I had to go home and read a history book to get the full impact of the play which ended with a warning that if we aren't careful, this could happen again. And as we passed the empty lot that once held up the twin towers, those words rang truer than ever.

Some audio clips from the play:

Clip 1, Clip 2, Clip 3, Clip 4, Clip 5, Clip 6.

Postscript
************
The next day, my family paid a visit to Steve's old fire house, Engine 55 in Little Italy. To check out those photos click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Report From the Second Annual Golden Age of Cinema Film Festival

After being alerted to the event through the Indie King site, my friend RC and I decided to attend the Second Annual Golden Age of Cinema Film Festival's opening night, a screening of Living In Oblivion (LIO) in New York City on May 22nd, 2002. Steve and Tom DiCillo (the director) were there to do a Q&A after the screening. I brought my camera and my copy of Trees Lounge in hopes I’d have an opportunity to meet Steve and have him sign the DVD.

We didn't actually "meet" him. (See him in this picture, on the right with the purple shirt on?) But, we saw him talking to people after they showed the movie, as we were waiting on line for the bathroom. Then when we went back into the theatre for the Q&A, I asked someone in an aisle seat if two seats next to them were taken. They said, "Yes." Then I heard, "Here, you can have these seats." It was Steve! I recognized his voice before I saw him. I didn't realize he was sitting in the row ahead of the row we were trying to sit in. So I said, "Thank you!" We took the seats and he moved across the aisle into the same row, and waited until the Q&A began. I didn’t want to bother him for an autograph at that point (By the way, I have only asked for an autograph once before, I just don’t like doing it.) He was called onto the stage a few minutes later.

Most of the questions asked were about their views on Indie vs. Big Hollywood films, which of course is to be expected. Don't get me wrong, I love indie film and think a lot of Hollywood films are a bunch of rubbish. Tom DiCillo seemed to have a lot of bitterness toward Hollywood. Most of the audience were film students and indie buffs, but I felt there could have been more interesting questions asked. I would have been more interested in hearing them talk about the process of writing, filming and producing rather then hear them discuss the politics of film making, but that’s just me. Steve looked a little bored at times, but he was funny as hell and answered the questions honestly.

Steve bascially said, "Hey man, if they offer me a roll and it pays the bills, yadda yadda yadda..." He must be so sick of people asking him the same questions over and over. He cracked some funny jokes. The host of the Q&A, some Russian Film Teacher at NYU, asked him, "So Steve, is it true you accepted the part without even reading the script?" Steve's response, "Well I can't read!" He was cute.

Tom Dicillo discussed how LIO was originally only 30 minutes long. I’m afraid I don’t remember the whole story, but he took the 30 minute short film and turned it into the full length film it is. Tom gave a part to almost anyone who would help fund the film. He shared a few funny stories regarding some of the people who wanted a part but were not the right type.

It was an enjoyable evening. I was happy to see Living In Oblivion on the big screen and enjoyed the Q&A with Tom and Steve. Steve has always been one of my favorite Long Islanders. No matter the role, Steve has an amazing ability to shape his characters perfectly.

Thank you to EL for that wonderful report and photos!

Steve's School Days

First, here are the questions we asked:

What grades did you & Steve attend together?
Were you friends with Steve in school? What was he like back then?
We know Steve had 3 brothers and we know the names of 2, Michael & Ken. Do you happen to know the name of the third Buscemi brother? Where was Steve in the birth order?
From your website we can see that you've enjoyed quite a bit of success as an author. Do you know of any other classmates that have achieved a degree of fame in their specific field?

The following is Ed's reply:

First, I actually wasn't in the same year as Steve, although I certainly knew him. I believe I was a year ahead of him. I think Steve graduated from Valley Stream's Central High School in 1975; I graduated from the same establishment in 1974. I was in the same graduating class as Steve's brother Jon (that's Jon, not John, as I recall). And there, by the way, is the name of your mystery Buscemi brother.

I'm not quite clear on where Steve was in the birth-order of his family; I can't say that I knew Ken or Michael (the names you mention in your question); I only knew Jon and Steve, and Steve was the younger of the two.

I recall Steve as something of a tough kid -- with a greaser, auto-shop streak to him -- who then surprised many people by immersing in our school's drama troupe. We had a very wonderful, absolutely great English teacher/Drama troupe advisor by the name of Lynne Lappin (that's MR. Lynne Lappin). Lynne ran a drama program that set a number of people on their way to serious professional work. (Other mid-1970's CHS graduates who went on to excellent acting careers include Steve Hytner and Patricia Charbonneau [She was in "Call Me" with Steve in 1988], and there are others.)

Interestingly, when Steve returned home to Valley Stream to make his film Trees Lounge, he wound up dedicating the film to Lynne Lappin. About a year or so before the filming of Trees Lounge, Steve had returned to our old high school auditorium (together with other drama troupe alumni, including my brother Jim, Central '79) for a benefit performance intended to raise a fund to endow a theater scholarship in Lynne Lappin's name. The evening was great fun, splendidly successful, and raised a lot of money for the scholarship that is now given out every year to a deserving Central High School senior.

There are indeed plenty of mid-70's kids from Central High School who have gone onto achieve great things both in the theater and out. I've already given you some acting names. We can boast Michael Negrin, an outstanding and highly successful cinemetographer. We also have Ben Freed, an optometrist by day and a banjo virtuoso by night, having been the player behind the all-banjo soundtrack for the film Raising Arizona. And we have Jeff Robbins, a prominent Boston attorney and Democratic-party activist. These are just a few of the success stories; there are lots of 'em.

In a later e-mail in response to my mentioning my trip to Valley Stream for a fundraiser for the kids who lost a parent on 9/11, Ed had the following to say:

Glad you liked Valley Stream. It is, indeed, a very nice place. And yes, like so many nice places within screaming distance of NYC, it got hit pretty hard on 9/11. Two members of the Central's class of 1975, Steve's class, were killed, Andrew Friedman and Glenn Thompson. They weren't firemen; they were traders working in the Towers at the time the planes hit. I seem to recall that Glenn was on the wrestling team, as was Steve.

All together, Central High School lost six alumni including Joseph Zaccoli '80 (broker), Thomas Hobbs '78 (broker) and Thomas E. Jurgens '93 (court officer, Manhattan Supreme Court) and Robert J. Caulfield '70 (electrician). Most of the alumni who died no longer lived in town (of course). Valley Stream's current residents also got hit pretty hard ----- several firemen, plus others.

To learn more about Ed, visit his site at http://renehan.blogspot.com. Also, look for his latest book The Kennedys at War coming out April 16, 2002.

For those who wish to contribute to the The Lynne C. Lappin Scholarship fund, you can mail a check to:

The Lynne C. Lappin Scholarship
c/o The Central High School Alumni Association
Attention: Central Casting
P.O. Box 642
Valley Stream, NY 11582

The fund provides a scholarship of $500 every year to a graduating CHS senior who is intending to study theater in college.

"Central Casting" is the alumni drama troupe that put together the initial fund-raising performance with Steve and others in 1994. They administer the Lynne C. Lappin Scholarship.

The Boston Herald

Double trouble; Steve Buscemi relishes not-so-good-guy roles of 'Monsters, Inc.' and 'Domestic Disturbance'

Steve Buscemi, the one-time New York firefighter turned first-rate actor, gets to be doubly bad this Halloween week. He plays unsavory characters in two of Friday's major releases, the Disney Pixar computer-animated comedy "Monsters, Inc." and the John Travolta thriller "Domestic Disturbance."

"I always hesitate to call any of my characters bad," said Buscemi ("Fargo," "Ghost World"). "They're just trying to get along the best they know how." That's an interesting way to describe Buscemi's role as Randall Boggs, a slimy, reptilian, multi-armed, now-you-see-him, now-you-don't creature who threatens a pigtailed toddler and schemes to become Monstropolis' top Scare Monster in "Monsters, Inc."

It depends on your point of view, Buscemi insisted. "I don't see Randall Boggs as the villain. He's a monster that's more competitive than the rest. And probably more insecure, so he puts on airs of superiority. I approached it as a regular character who's intense - and I had the freedom to push it all the way.

"I liked that Randall had so many hands," he added. "That he could blend in and sort of disappear and sneak up on you and play tricks on people that way. I liked his eyes, his teeth - he looked like me a little bit! It's fun sometimes to play a character who is just unapologetically mean. He thought the way to be the happiest monster was to be the scariest, meanest monster, and he didn't care about how he achieved his objectives. It was fun to play, even if I wouldn't want to hang out with him."

Voicing an animated character, Buscemi found, could be "hard and grueling, because you can do take after take. It was for me very intense. After a three- or four-hour session, it was exhausting. They'd come to me about playing Randall, and I was excited because I liked the Disney Pixar films in the past. They're just great, extremely well made. But I wasn't trying to do a voice, rather get down to what this character is: a monster who is out to win."

Despite the long hours, Buscemi relished the opportunity to be part of a production whose predecessors are the two "Toy Story" films and "A Bug's Life." "Working on it, you felt like it was something that was going to be unique and exciting," he said. "When you see it, you forget all that (work). For a split second, I felt I was watching myself - and I don't know if that was imagined or real. That was the scariest thing in the film for me! Mostly, I just laughed a lot."

Buscemi reports he didn't get into the mindset of what scared him as a kid, but he remembers it vividly. "I imagined monsters under the bed, that was the scariest thing for my brothers and I," he said. "We slept in the same room and wouldn't let our arms dangle over the side. It was scary to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I didn't imagine a face, just being grabbed by something horrible."

Buscemi gets a little scary himself in "Domestic Disturbance." "It's a thriller directed by Harold Becker and stars John (Travolta) and Vince Vaughn," he said. "John is divorced from Teri Polo ('Meet the Parents') and they have a son. She gets remarried to Vince and he has a shady past and that's where I come in; I come to town to threaten his past."

For the first time in his career - which took off in 1986 when he played a gay man dying of AIDS in "Parting Glances" - Buscemi recently received more attention for an incident off the set than for the film itself. While on location in Wilmington, N.C., filming "Domestic Disturbance," Buscemi and Vaughn were at the Firebelly Lounge and were part of a fight in the parking lot. Buscemi was stabbed in the throat, head and arm. Charges were filed against the assailant, a local resident.

'It's all over and I don't know what to say about it," said Buscemi. "It's an unfortunate thing that happened one late night out and a scary thing to go through. But I'm fine. I hope I never have to go through something like that again."

Newsday (New York, NY)

BUSCEMI: JUST A REGULAR IRREGULAR GUY

IT MAY BE FAIR to consider that Steve Buscemi missed his era. As an actor, he's one of the great schmoes. He's a regular guy, but projects such fine-tuned irregularity onscreen-a kind of squirrelly jumpiness- that he calls into question the whole notion of what it means to be regular. Film noir directors of the '40s and '50s would have loved him. You catch a glimpse of his eyes, and think of a recitation by Tom Waits, one of Buscemi's favorite songwriters: What's he building in there?

Then again, Buscemi, 42, hasn't missed his era at all. Since his first major film role as an AIDS-stricken rock musician in "Parting Glances" (1986), the actor has been one of the defining presences of the latter-day American independent film movement. He's a consistent member of the repertory in the films of Jim Jarmusch, Joel and Ethan Coen, and Quentin Tarantino-for whom he first portrayed Mr. Pink in "Reservoir Dogs" -and has begun to extrapolate his persona to monster- budget blockbusters, such as "Con Air" and "Armageddon."

And, lately, what he's been building is his own body of work as a director. Buscemi's "Animal Factory," which opens Friday, is a prison drama built around the complex relationship between a young man (Edward Furlong) sent up for marijuana possession and the hardened leader of a prison gang (Willem Dafoe) who takes him under his wing. At first glance, this seems a surprising subject for Buscemi, whose 1996 feature-film directorial debut, "Trees Lounge," was a low-key, but keenly observed character drama.

"It was bigger in scope and there were more people to deal with, but at its heart it's a relationship story with complex characters and that's what I'm drawn to," Buscemi said, chatting on a recent afternoon at a midtown Manhattan hotel. He's wearing black pants and a black V-neck shirt, sporting a short, salt-and-pepper goatee and looking, oddly enough, like one of the German "Sprockets" refugees that menaced his unlucky character in "The Big Lebowski." "I wasn't specifically looking to do a genre film, and certainly not a prison genre film. I just saw this as a really intense drama that happens to take place in prison. Yeah, I watched a few prison movies in preparation, but it hasn't been a dream of mine to do the big prison great escape film."

Instead, what becomes apparent as you watch "Animal Factory" is that Buscemi has created a scenario to populate with actors such as himself: The movie is a celebration of great mugs. There are mugs you should recognize but can't-Mickey Rourke does a brilliantly left-field turn as a drag queen-and mugs you recognize but can't place, because you've never seen them in a movie before.

Like "Trees Lounge," it unfolds in a naturalistic manner that lets the acting, rather than cinematic effects, tell the story-based on a book by 35-year ex-convict Edward Bunker, whom Buscemi met on the set of "Reservoir Dogs" (Bunker was "Mr. Blue"), and whose work also inspired the 1974 Dustin Hoffman film "Straight Time."

"Part of what I have trouble with as an actor is hanging out on the set when you're not being used," he said. "The director is never in that position. He laughs. The thing about only being a director is you don't have the benefit of working with other directors, so I feel like I've been to the best film school ever."

And, as Buscemi notes, as an actor, "I know what actors need."

Which is?

"They need a lot of attention," he said with a grin that connotes a knowing understatement. "And they need the room to make mistakes and feel their way around and come up with things on their own. And to not always be told, here's where you stand and here's how I want you to say this line. If actors feel like they are collaborators in the process, rather than hired hands, I think you get so much more out of them."

John Lurie, the composer and actor who provides the striking original score for "Animal Factory," suggests that Buscemi is "very tenacious in his unassuming way." Though, surprisingly, they've never appeared in the same movie, the pair collaborated 20 years ago on an early, theatrical version of Lurie's cable show, "Fishing With John." And Buscemi cites Lurie's recent album, "The Legendary Marvin Pontiac's Greatest Hits," in which the singer inhabits the soul of a vanished bluesman, as his current favorite. "He's a hard one to get a handle on in a way," Lurie said, then notes how pervasively Buscemi has infiltrated pop culture's tricky matrix. "I was just reading some book, and the character talks about going to a Steve Buscemi film festival. I must confess I felt a pang of jealousy."

Buscemi hasn't had to trade off his private life to the spotlight. He's got three more movies, as an actor, in the can, including Terry "Crumb" Zwigoff's adaptation of the Daniel Clowes comic book, "Ghost World," and will next direct a screen version of "Queer," based on William Burroughs' novel of the 1950s New York shadow world. But Buscemi makes prolific look easy, even throwing in an occasional stage role, as he did in a production of the Wooster Group's "North Atlantic."

"It seems like I've worked nonstop," said Buscemi, who spends much of his time at home in Brooklyn with his wife, choreographer Jo Andres, and their son, Lucian. "But I do have a lot of downtime, which I'm grateful for. I'm not usually on shoots that last for a long time."

So, the regular guy, so purposefully irregular on screen, is, really, just a regular guy, which in these days of celebrity overdrive may be the most remarkable thing of all.

Interview Magazine

With his skinny frame, bulging eyes, and varying styles - from dweebish to deadpan to deadly - Steve Buscemi has become one of the best and most beloved character actors around. Now, he's taking his shots both behind and in front of the camera in this month's Trees lounge.

I met Steve Buscemi on the set of Robert Altman's film Kansas City, in which we play husband and wife. What amazes me the most about Buscemi's acting is the seamlessness of it. You never actually see him acting: You see a real person in each character he creates - someone you can relate to no matter what the circumstances. His list of credits is remarkable, as this sample demonstrates: Parting Glances (1986), Mystery Train (1989), New York Stories (1989), King of New York (1990), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), In the Soup (1992), Reservoir Dogs (1992), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Pulp Fiction (1994), Living in Oblivion (1995), Desperado (1995), Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995), Fargo (1996), John Carpenter's Escape From L.A. (1996), and Kansas City (1996).

This month, Buscemi makes his feature-film debut as a writer/director with the semi-autobiographical Trees Lounge, in which he plays Tommy Basilio, an unemployed Long Island auto mechanic and barfly going nowhere fast; it co-stars Carol Kane, Anthony La-Paglia, and Chloe Sevigny. I conducted this interview with Buscemi at his Brooklyn home.

BROOKE SMITH: So start by telling me your life story.

STEVE BUSCEMI: Aw, man! Not you, too. All right. Born in Brooklyn, grew up in Valley Stream, Long Island. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I started acting. After that. I went to Nassau Community College to do liberal arts but dropped out after at semester. I was going to buy a van and move to L.A. so I could secretly pursue acting without any of my friends knowing.

BS: Why, because it wasn't cool?

SB: I was just shy about it.

BS: So what happened to the van plan?

SB: My father talked me out of it. He persuaded me to take acting classes in Manhattan instead and encouraged me to take the civil-service test for the fire department. I eventually moved to the Lower East Side and worked for a furniture-moving company while doing stand-up comedy in uptown clubs. After two years, I got called up for the New York City Fire Department - Engine Company 55 on Broome Street. It was a year before the other guys found out I did stand-up. This other fireman actor, Dean Tulipane, outed me. The guys were shocked that I did comedy.

BS: Why had you chosen stand-up?

SB: Because my biggest aspiration was to get on a sitcom. I didn't think I'd ever be able to do movies. That was for serious actors.

BS: What was your act like?

SB: I borrowed - not material, but style and delivery. I think all comics borrow from each other. Only a few have an original voice and I wasn't one of them. In the end, I couldn't figure out who to steal from, so I stopped doing it, though I continued to do stand-up at fireman parties. Then I met [actor/performer] Rockets Redglare, who was doing his "Taxi Cabaret" show at Club 57 in the East Village and said I could perform at his show. That's where I met Mark Boone, Jr. We started writing and performing in Rockets's shows and then doing our own shows. At one point we were doing a new one each week. We kind of drove each other crazy with our different approaches and we fought a lot. We'd get drunk after shows and have it out. But it wasn't until I worked with Mark that I began to learn about acting.

BS: What was your first film?

SB: Mark and I both did Eric Mitchell's film The Way It Is (Or Eurydice in the Avenues) [1983]. Eric only had $10,000, no script, and he shot it in black-and-white without sound. The first movie I had a featured role in was Parting Glances.

BS: The rest, as they say, is history - and now you've just written and directed your first feature, Trees Lounge. You once said to me that if you'd never left Long island, you would've become like the guy you play in the film. Can you elaborate?

SB: Well, when I lived on Long Island I used to hang out in bars and drink a lot, and I didn't have anything else going on. I got the idea for the film by trying to imagine what I'd be doing there now.

BS: Did you enjoy directing?

SB: Sometimes. A lot of times I would get stressed out. I wished I'd had more time, because once I started to get the hang of it, the shoot was over.

BS: Was it hard directing yourself?

SB: It made it harder for me to keep my eye on the whole thing. Like, in the party scene, where we had a camera on a dolly going back and forth catching Chloe [Sevigny], Bianca [Bakija], [Mark] Boone, and me smoking a joint, I felt stoned even though we weren't smoking real pot. And it just felt out of control, like no one was directing the movie. Meanwhile everyone was asking me questions that I had to try to answer. We didn't cover the scene that well, but we did a lot of takes, so I had enough to choose from when it came to editing. Another night, Boone and I were shooting a scene in a car, and the prop guy didn't have time to put water in the beer cans, so I was drinking real beers. I had a great time, but I don't know how good I was as a director that night.

BS: How much have you learned from other directors?

SB: The main thing was watching how they treated the actors and the crew, and the atmosphere that they set up. On Kansas City, for example, Bob Altman had this relaxed but serious attitude. Everybody loved him. I did anyway; I wanted him to adopt me.

BS: I remember you told me John Huston's Fat City [1972] was an influence on the look of Trees Lounge.

SB: It was a movie I had in my head even before I wrote Trees Lounge. Fat City has great bar scenes, and I knew I wanted that. Huston shot it so simply, and you get really absorbed in the characters. Lisa [Rinzler, Trees Lounge's cinematographer] and I also looked at John Cassavetes's films, which I love. The more I watched them, the more I realized how much work he must have put into them, and how difficult it is to make something look like it's happening spontaneously. Sometimes I would try to design shots that were inspired by his films, but they were hard to do. I think I was more influenced by his writing - the way that he doesn't judge his characters but just presents them. I also liked it when he showed them having a good time. I tried to get some of that feeling in the party scene in Trees Lounge.

BS: Were there times when you hated your movie?

SB: No, but when I was editing I felt disappointed that I hadn't always gotten everything. But I wrote myself a good part and I enjoyed acting it - I think this character is the closest to myself that I've ever played - and I liked being the one who decided if we were going to do another take.

BS: Your character, Tommy, says that he'd be different if he'd had a kid. Do you think that you're different because you and Jo [Andres, filmmaker, SB's wife] have a child?

SB: Absolutely. I feel my life has more meaning because I am responsible for another life, although I don't have control over what Lucian [their five-year-old son] is going to do. He's definitely going to carve his own way.

BS: What do you think Lucian is going to be?

SB: He likes science, so I have a fantasy that he'll be a scientist. I don't know if he'll have anything to do with acting. He doesn't seem very impressed by it, whereas I was obsessed with it as a kid. Lucian acted in Trees Lounge on the day that was my worst day. I was nervous. I was thinking, What if he gives me a hard time? It'll be so embarrassing. But he was so professional, it was scary.

BS: What do your parents think of Trees Lounge?

SB: It was a bit hard on my mother. She's seen me get killed in every way imaginable in different movies, but because she knows that Trees Lounge is based on my own life, I think she feels bad for me that my character gets into so much trouble. But both my parents like the movie. My father, of course, thinks it's a masterpiece.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Brant Publications, Inc.

The Washington Post

THE LIFE HE LEFT BEHIND; Actor Steve Buscemi And His Altered Ego

A 4-year-old kid gets hit by a bus in Brooklyn. It's horrible, right? But you know, sometimes even the worst things can turn out to be good.

The kid survives with a fractured skull, gets a settlement from the city and, when he turns 18, collects $ 6,000 from a trust fund.

So now he's out of high school, driving an ice cream truck and wondering what to do with his basically normal life. Take the civil service test, says his old man, who's putting in 30 years with the sanitation department; get yourself a secure job, with a pension. But the kid has bigger plans -- he wants to go to Hollywood, be an actor. In the life-script of Steve Buscemi, this is the turning point. A typical Hollywood production would feature a stormy scene pitting father against son, a classic test of wills: fists, cursing, somebody getting pinned against the wall.

But anyone who knows Buscemi, one of this decade's best character actors, knows that he's not typical Hollywood. He may play low-rent, amoral types -- hit men, weasels, snivelers -- but of course he's more complicated than that. Friends knew that if Buscemi ever got the chance to make his own picture, it would be subtle and multilayered, revealing itself slowly. It would avoid plot, focusing instead on conversation and characters. It would manage to be comic and tragic at the same time.

It would be "Trees Lounge," which opens in Washington today. Set in a crummy Long Island bar, it's mainly about blue-collar boozers and emotional cripples. Buscemi wrote it, directed it and plays the starring role (if a total screw-up can be called a star). He cast several of his indie-film actor friends along with members of his Italian-Irish family. They stage a disturbing little story -- the story of the life Steve Buscemi left behind.

Steve Who?

The bellhop in "Barton Fink." The whiny Mr. Pink in "Reservoir Dogs." The taciturn hit man Mr. Shhh in "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead." The neurotic kidnapper in "Fargo."

Oh, he's that guy -- the one with the bulging blue eyes and snaggled, nicotine-stained teeth. A homicidal Don Knotts, he has developed a video-store cult following that will rent any movie he appears in. And he's been in a shelf-full; seven in the past year alone. Did you catch his bad-guy cameo in "Billy Madison"? Or his farcical lead in "Living in Oblivion"? And you gotta see his Mexican bar scene in "Desperado."

Buscemi, 38, keeps busy not only because he's in demand but because he's a working man at heart, a former gas pumper, furniture mover and firefighter. He's just in from Los Angeles -- where he wrapped up his role as a serial killer in the prison-break movie "Con Air" -- but he lives in Brooklyn. In person, Buscemi (pronounced boo-SEHM-me) is easy-going and gracious -- and so out of screen character that he doesn't even fire up a butt.

"I'm out of cigarettes," he explains, patting his shirt pocket. And that's good, he says; he doesn't want to be a bad influence. He won't smoke in publicity photo shoots anymore, and he's cut out cigarettes at home.

"My son really gets upset about smoking. He's 6. I've explained to him that sometimes I have to smoke because my character smokes."

A good dad -- and loyal husband. He presses a small yellow handbill on his interviewer. It promotes his wife Jo Andres' new short film, "Black Kites," based on journals an artist kept during the siege of Sarajevo. It will be playing for a week in the Village -- the kind of arcane film that few people will ever see.

"Trees Lounge" is similarly noncommercial. Though certain critics love it ("A perfectly observed slice of life," Roger Ebert opined after its screening at Cannes; "the finest role of [Buscemi's] career," says Entertainment Weekly), the movie is opening on only about 40 art-house screens nationwide. It isn't playing on well-multiplexed Long Island, where Buscemi misspent his adolescence.

Though the state drinking age then was 18, Steve was faking his way into bars by 16. There was a real Trees Lounge -- a shot-and-a-beer joint in Valley Stream (a town near Kennedy Airport where his family, including three other brothers, moved after Brooklyn). But you had to "graduate" from other bars before you could claim a stool at the Trees, as Buscemi tells it. Every town has a dive like the Trees, with its brown vinyl booths, broken-down old men and sad-luck dames: a pseudo-family whose common bonds are alcohol and loneliness.

Buscemi wrote "Trees Lounge" six years ago as an exercise in imagining how he would have turned out if he hadn't left Valley Stream after high school. The result is a character named Tommy Basilio: "31 years old, pale and thin, unemployed, but possesses a fair amount of humor and charm," as the screenplay puts it.

And at his very core, he's a weasel. Not a violent man, but a moral blur.

He's the guy who'll lift $ 1,500 from the gas station till, blow it in Atlantic City and wonder why he gets fired. He'll cheat on his girlfriend. He'll try to cadge the last beer and snort the last line of cocaine. He'll put the moves on a 17-year-old girl who's gotten stoned for the first time.

The hardened criminals that Buscemi has often played may unnerve audiences, but the character of Tommy Basilio is truly frightening because he's more imaginable. More real. Closer to home.

As a teenager, Buscemi aspired to be a comic performer -- just as Basilio does. In the movie Basilio does bits from "The Wizard of Oz" to amuse his friends -- as did Buscemi, who played the Cowardly Lion in fourth grade. Basilio ends up driving a Good Humor ice-cream route. As did Buscemi.

"Yeah, this character that I'm playing is the closest to myself that I've ever played," Buscemi admits. He pauses and stares intently across his hotel suite. "It's, I guess, my realistic dark side."

For anyone who ever escaped a suffocating small town, the dark side is the past.

Many of Buscemi's friends moved beyond Trees Lounge by getting married or leaving Valley Stream. "But I know a few people" -- he hesitates and sounds a bit pained. "One committed suicide, a couple ended up in jail. Or else I don't even hear of them anymore."

As Tommy says in the movie: "All my friends are either dead, married or in jail."

Large as Life

Again, it's close to life.

Buscemi's childhood encounter with a large vehicle occurred while his mother was making a quick trip to the butcher shop across the street. She'd told little Stevie to stay upstairs, but he got scared. The bus stop was right in front of the apartment. John Buscemi, Steve's father, picks up the story:

"Unbeknownst to my wife, he ran downstairs. She was just crossing the street, and he went following after her. The bus was coming and slowing down, doing about five miles an hour when it hit him."

Thank God, it was winter. The boy was bundled up like a little Michelin tire man, including a well-padded hat. Still, he spent a week in the hospital; his head swelled up so much he "looked like a Martian," says the father.

In a way, the calamity turned out to be Steve Buscemi's salvation. The city automatically made a settlement in such cases. When Buscemi turned 18, he used part of the money to pay for full-time acting classes at the famed Lee Strasburg Institute in Manhattan.

John Buscemi had suggested the acting lessons. It was a compromise: Now the kid wouldn't be running off to Hollywood, and he could also take the civil service test and maybe land a firefighter's job.

The father figured acting school couldn't hurt: "You'll learn how to speak; they'll polish you up. Whatever you do in life, you'll be polished up," he recalls telling his son.

Manhattan was an exotic and intimidating place. When a classmate offered Buscemi a $ 100-a-month sublet on the grimy Lower East Side, he was afraid to leave home. But one night in his room, panic gripped him.

"I really thought: 'If I don't take this, I'll never get out,' " he says. He took it.

A Hot Career

With Buscemi on vocals, they formed the Pawns of Love (a "psychedelic country" band, according to Boone). They did cabaret acts as well as original plays at experimental clubs such as La Mama.

"We developed this way of working which was mostly based on improvisation and snippets of conversation heard," says Boone, who has a major part in "Trees Lounge." "It was nonlinear humor that was not about jokes at all. No jokes. The humor was totally based on the character."

You can detect this approach in such memorable Buscemi roles as Mr. Pink, who goes on a twisted tear against waitresses in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs." ("I don't tip. I don't believe in tipping.") And the vernacular style is crucial to Buscemi's bleak yet humorous script for "Trees Lounge."

"There may be about two sentences of exposition in 'Trees Lounge,' " Boone says. "The rest is revealed to you in conversation -- you get history somehow, but by way of passing conversation like anyone would, as opposed to telling the story.

"It's risky," Boone admits. "You can lose your audience."

The other firefighters thought Buscemi was crazy when he gave up the security of the firehouse in 1985. But after landing his first major movie role -- in the pioneering AIDS picture "Parting Glances" -- he found regular employment in films by highly regarded directors, including Jim Jarmusch ("Mystery Train") and Martin Scorsese ("New York Stories"). Buscemi also became a favorite of the quirky Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, who have cast him in five movies.

He's played in such commercial fare as "Airheads" and "Rising Sun," and with 50-plus films on his resume, he's becoming this era's Strother Martin ("Cool Hand Luke," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"), a great character actor in westerns. Generally he's offered parts that fit his talent for portraying criminals and his physical type, a wiry ex-wrestler who never went for orthodontia.

Consider his upcoming film with Nicolas Cage and John Malkovich, in which federal convicts are being transported to another prison on a plane dubbed Con Air. "They take over the plane, they jump the guards," Buscemi explains. "I'm really kind of a passive passenger on this plane -- I'm a serial killer who's being transported. I'm not part of the plan. I come on the plane in full restraints, and I'm caged.

"But Malkovich's character, who's the mastermind . . . " Here Buscemi can't help chortling. "He lets me go because he loves my work."

Like many other actors, Buscemi developed a case of director's disease. His itch to sit behind the camera certainly must have been exacerbated by two of his major roles -- in which he played frustrated directors.

In the little-seen "In the Soup" (by Alexandre Rockwell, 1992), Buscemi's character ends up a patsy in a crime spree while trying to finance a terribly boring 500-page script. In the exquisitely funny "Living in Oblivion" (Tom DiCillo, 1995), he's an explosive director bedeviled by an incompetent staff and an arrogant leading man.

"I love both those films," Buscemi says. And of course he hopes to direct more movies.

But does he ever see himself breaking out of the weasel typecast?

"To me, my character in 'Living in Oblivion' was a romantic lead. In 'Trees Lounge,' I kiss, like, three girls. It's true!" he protests.

Unlike in "Oblivion," which spoofs low-budget movies, the "Trees Lounge" shoot went smoothly. But with a mere $ 1.3 million budget and 24-day shooting schedule, there was bound to be tension and frustration.

"I had a really good crew and cast," he says, smiling. "So there wasn't anybody being incompetent that I wanted to explode at."

Besides, everyone was either like family -- actors whom Buscemi had worked with before (Seymour Cassel, Elizabeth Bracco, Carol Kane, Samuel L. Jackson) -- or was family. He cast his younger brother, Michael, to play his brother in the movie. His father has a walk-on part. So does Buscemi's son, Lucian.

The extended Buscemi family is close, but the movie hints at powerful and dark undercurrents, the kind that run through many families. Dysfunction is a major subtext.

"Everybody's [screwed] up," Tommy Basilio says in a scene that includes his screen brother, Raymond. "I'm [screwed] up but I pretend like I'm not."

Asked about this theme, Michael Buscemi says simply, "I think in our family it's very hard for certain people to show their emotions." Mark Boone says the movie captures an "emotional coldness -- there's a lot of stuff that isn't talked about, by fathers, mothers, children."

Unlike the many blood-soaked movies Steve Buscemi's seen in, "Trees Lounge" is about interior violence. Drinking, drugging, cheating, running away -- basic human frailties that cause so many wounds.

In this way, "Trees Lounge" is a horror movie. Boone says: "The real horror takes place inside families. The real horror is the mundane."

Local Hero

On this rainy New York night Buscemi is truly a hero, especially to the friends, neighbors and relatives who come to dance, snap pictures and celebrate at the premiere party. Who would've believed it -- the kid made it big.

"There's only good things to say about him," says a firefighting pal, Lt. Dennis Gordon. "He worked his way up from the bottom, with no breaks. He's Mr. Honest, Mr. Integrity. It's so nice to see someone so successful who's like that."

When Buscemi heard that the actual Trees Lounge was being converted to a modern sports bar, he purchased the old sign for a couple hundred bucks. He stored it in his father's back yard in Valley Stream. Recently the woman who ran Trees for 40 years asked if she could have the sign back, for the memories.

Of course, Buscemi said, and gave it to her. He was through with the Trees Lounge.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group Copyright 1996 The Washington Post

A big thank you goes out to indieFan for digging the following article out of her vast Buscemi archives and for typing it up and donating it for all us fans to share! It comes from the January 1994 issue of Interview Magazine. FYI, the film short titled Scene Six, Take One that Dermot refers to was later to become a full fledged feature titled Living in Oblivion. If you learn just one thing from this article, it should be, never invite Steve to play golf...

Enjoy!

The One and Only Mulroney

Interviewed by Steve Buscemi

Dermot Mulroney, besides being a gifted and versatile actor (his radically different knockout performances in the movies Longtime Companion and Bright Angel are among my favorites), is also one hell of a musician. Playing his violin stand-up like a cello, he was the inspiration of our late-night jam session when we were shooting the HBO film The Last Outlaw in New Mexico. Watching him in action, either playing music or performing in a scene, is at once an exciting and satisfying experience. And, I'm happy to say that in working with Dermot and getting to know him, I found his heart to be as big as his talent.

STEVE BUSCEMI: Did you order hamburger on your pizza?

DERMOT MULRONEY: No. Pepperoni and mushrooms.

SB: Now you know something about me--I'm gullible. You told me you can get hamburger on pizza.

DM: You can. You can get hamburger on pizza all the time.

SB: O.K. Now, did you act as a kid?

DM: Yeah, in neighborhood plays.

SB: And this was where?

DM: Alexandria, Virginia. There was a woman who had all the local kids come over in the afternoon and rehearse plays and put them on at weekends. She made us sell the tickets and run the lights and do the makeup. I played the stage manager in Pullman Car Hiawatha, a Thornton Wilder play, when I was nine.

SB: What do your parents do?

DM: My father is a recently tenured professor at Villanova [University], after having done thirty years of private tax-law practice in D.C. My mother is a traveler, an actress, and a hell of a gal. They're both from Iowa, and there's some of the Iowa farmer in me--not that my parents were farmers. I think I'm like a putterer.

SB: Like a... what did you say?

DM: Putterer! Somebody who fixes things and putters around the house.

SB: Right. You're not talking about golf?

DM: No. Although I could if you'd like.

SB: No, I hate golf. Did your mother make you take music lessons?

DM: No. My older brother Sean started, and I naturally followed suit, playing the cello. Connor started the next year.

SB: You have two brothers?

DM: Three brothers and a sister; I'm the middle one. I didn't ever loathe practicing music. I didn't ever like it much, but I always enjoyed sitting in a symphony orchestra. It's a glorious, glorious feeling. About three years ago, I joined the Beach Cities Symphony in Manhattan Beach and played two concerts with them. It flooded me with old feelings to play in an ensemble with eight or ten cellists. You have to think like a fish in a school of fish.

SB: And I hear you have hootenannies at your house.

DM: Yeah, our house and other people's houses.

SB: Oh, it's a little bit of rotating hootennay thing. And who shows up?

DM: We get some pretty amazing players. We have an accordion, a couple of guitars, a cello, and my brother Kieran plays fiddle and banjo. My friend Eric is a great tin whistler. It's a nice little combo.

SB: I recall when we worked together on The Last Outlaw that you said there's a sort of mean streak that runs through your family.

DM: I think that was day-one blues. [both laugh] I don't think there was any night that I was ever so humiliated, and I just said, "O.K., you crazy bastards, I'm a mean guy!"

SB: Yeah, but you're not. Though, when need be you can summon it?

DM: Am I mean or not? I do have a temper, but I've got a handle on it, that's for darn sure.

SB: You're married to Catherine Keener, a really good actress. Do you guys help each other prepare for auditions?

DM: All the time. That's the only reason I still know how to audition. I would have to confess to being less helpful to her. It's real difficult trying to tell someone how to act, in acting or real life.

SB: So she's an influence?

DM: Absolutely. She's really specific and direct. I've got habits and instincts that I'd easily fall into to impress somebody at an audition, but it's old hat to her, so it's, Find something else pal. You gotta do a little thinking instead of just winging it.

SB: You acted with Sam Shepard in Bright Angel, and then he cast you in his film Silent Tongue.

DM: Yeah, as the prototypical Shepard "son" character, with the sins of the father bearing down on him and madness and alcohol in his genes!

SB: It's a very atypical Western.

DM: It's a film that only certain people will see and only certain people will like.

SB: You've done a lot of films that haven't had much commercial success.

DM: I've only done two that have had it--Young Guns and Point of No Return.

SB: Do you think you just prefer noncommercial films?

DM: I'm drawn to that material, and that material is drawn to me. Whereas the big cheese [in Hollywood] have no idea who I am, which is fine with me.

SB: I know River Phoenix was a buddy of yours. You met him on Silent Tongue, and then you worked with him again on The Thing Called Love.

DM: Largely because of his recommendation. I know [director] Peter [Bogdanovich] was leaning toward me anyway, but River was basically the one who said, "Hire him." So I have him to thank for providing me with that experience.

SB: Does River sing in the film?

DM: He sings and plays guitar. Wrote some original tunes. Beautiful, beautiful. His songs "Lone Star State of Mind" and "Picture Window" are gorgeous tunes that, needless to say, have been running through my head for the last couple of weeks. I loved him a lot. [pauses] Both films are incredibly interesting and made more so by River's presence in them. The character he played in Silent Tongue is just...unearthly. Full, uncultured madness. Like a dog.

SB: Sam Shepard plays music, doesn't he? Did you jam with him?

DM: We had a little session or two. One night, T-Bone Burnett, a friend of River's, happened to be going through town. So there was T-Bone and Sam and River on guitars and me on cello in this tiny little bar in Raslow, New Mexico. Played for a few hours, just hackin' away at it as usual, but it was a memorable experience.

SB: Let's talk a little about this short movie by Tom DiCillo we just worked on together.

DM: It's called Scene Six, Take One. It'll probably be about thirty minutes long, and it's a crazy, hilarious, heartbreaking film we shot in five long days on 42nd Street in New York.

SB: It's a movie about making a movie, and you play the cinematographer, Wolf. At some point during the filming, I turned to Tom, and I said, "Is this a comedy or a tragedy?"

DM: My feeling was that in front of the cameras the tragedy was going on, and behind the cameras it was all just a barrel of laughs. It's the kind of film that has a lot to say about how difficult it is in the human condition to have anything go right.

SB: I imagine it was fun for you to be working with Catherine?

DM: It was a gift, truly, to be the cameraman for your own wife. It's beautiful--to see her placed in front of you, fifteen hours a day. I was sort of a silent observer to her brilliance.

SB: Right before that you worked on Bad Girls, following your all-male experience—

DM: With you, on The Last Outlaw.

SB: And Bad Girls is an all-female Western. Well, not totally all female.

DM: Not all. Considering, you know, that I was in it, for example.

SB: What did you play in that?

DM: I would say I played the mysterious, silent, heroic type. In other words, I had few lines.

SB: So you had a lot of free time and played a lot of dominoes?

DM: A lot of dominoes at lunchtime with wranglers and firemen, and a little bit of golf. Keeping my dog Earl away from the pigs was practically a full-time jog. What would you have done in this situation?

SB: I would not have played golf, that's for sure.

DM: You probably would have written a feature film or produced something.

SB: No, I think I would have gone a little crazy.

DM: Oh, well, I did that, too. We can quit here, probably, unless you've got more to ask.

SB: I don't know. I'm kind of at a loss.

DM: I hope I get to interview you some time.

SB: That would be nice.

DM: Hey, Steve, so why don't we talk later this evening and really spill the beans?