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Trees Lounge - 1996 Written & Directed By Steve Buscemi |
Play the music video, "Trees Lounge" directed by Hayden & Steve Buscemi Behind the Scenes of Trees Lounge
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Production NotesSteve Buscemi has made an indelible mark on the world of independent film as an actor, bringing to life such unforgettable characters as "Mr. Pink" in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," the stressed-out, sleep-deprived director in Tom DiCillo's "Living in Oblivion," and most recently, the kidnapper-for-hire in Joel and Ethan Coen's "Fargo." It seems only natural that someone with Buscemi's understanding of the independent film machinery would try his hand at writing and directing his own indie feature. Based on the success of "What Happened to Pete, " a short film which was featured at the Rotterdam and Locarno film festivals and aired on the Bravo network, Buscemi was able to make his first full-length writing and directing project, "Trees Lounge, " a reality."Trees Lounge" follows Tommy Basilio, a grown-up slacker who, despite his long-buried secret dream of being a comedian, finds himself stuck in his dead-end suburban hometown on Long Island. In Altman-esque fashion, Tommy's life intersects with a colorful collection of locals, played by a virtual "who's who" of independent film actors and longtime friends ofBuscemi. "It's really a character film; it's about working-class people, and how they deal or don't deal with the lives they've created for themselves," says Buscemi. The script, which Buscemi wrote over a period of seven months, was inspired in part by the films of John Cassavetes. "I went to a Cassavetes retrospective at the Museum of Modem Art and literally spent an entire week watching all of his films back-to-back. What I noticed is that his films weren't really heavy on plot; any story that was told was done through characters and relationships. " Buscemi also responded to Cassavetes' respect for his characters and their lives: "He never judged his characters and he had a lot of love for them. You see them at their worst and at their best. As an actor, I could appreciate that, and kept it in mind while I was writing my script." "Trees Lounge" was also inspired by Buscemi's own life. "I tried to imagine what my life would be like if I had never moved to Manhattan and pursued acting and had just stayed in Valley Stream." Although the film is fictional, there are many similarities between Tommy Basilio's life and Buscemi's. Tommy tries his hand at working in a gas station and at driving an ice cream truck, both of which are jobs that Buscemi himself did during his youth. He also drew on old friends to create the eclectic cast of characters that float through the doors of Trees Lounge. "I wrote the part ofMike for Mark Boone Junior and Theresa for Elizabeth Bracco. I cast my own brother Michael as Tommy's brother Raymond. I always had certain people in mind that I wanted to be in this film, like Rockets Redglare, Carol Kane and Eszter Balint. " Filming in and around Buscemi's hometown ofValley Stream gave the process of creating the film a certain authenticity .Often visited by friends and relatives during the production process, Buscemi found the experience to be comforting, and very amusing: "I had a lot of fun. Especially on days like when we were at the baseball field, part of Tommy's regular ice cream route. It was the same place where I used to drive my ice cream truck. In fact, my fourth grade teacher, Carl Riccabono, came up to me when I was filming and teased me about those days. I got a kick out of that. " Buscemi also recalls times when the boundaries between art and life became a little blurred. In addition to his brother Michael, who plays Tommy's brother Raymond, Buscemi's father also had a cameo role in Uncle At's wake scene: "I was shooting this scene with Victor Arnold, who was playing my father and my real father was standing right next to him playing his brother. That was a little weird. But I have to say that my father took direction really well -my brother did, too. I didn't really know what to expect from that situation because this was the first time Mike and I worked together. There were certain scenes, like our fight scene at the bar, which completely took me back to the old days. We were really into it, to the point where it didn't feel like acting anymore. " The feeling was apparently mutual. "It's as if we were both teenagers again at times, " Michael Buscemi remarks. "Valley Stream hasn't changed all that much and Tommy and Raymond's relationship definitely has hints of our real relationship, but years ago. What was great was that while playing this character, I was able to watch Steve and learn so much from him." The fact that "Trees Lounge" was a family affair had ramifications throughout the production. The cast -even those like Anthony LaPaglia and Chloe Sevigny who had never worked with Buscemi before -felt especially at home with Buscemi at the helm. LaPaglia had admired Buscemi's talent since he first saw him in "Barton Fink, " but had never met him. Despite that fact, he quickly felt at ease: "First and foremost, I was able to identify with Rob, my character , because Valley Stream is not all that different from where I grew up. But I was also so impressed with the energy on the set. Everyone, even the crew, seemed to share Steve's vision for the film. And he is incredibly relaxed and easygoing. He let me free-fall a little when it came to playing around with my character. " LaPaglia1s sentiments were also shared by Buscemi's longtime friends in the cast. Elizabeth Bracco, who plays Tommy's pregnant ex-girlfriend Theresa, remarks, "this is the fourth project I've done with Steve and it's filled with people I've known for years. We're all friends, practically family, and it makes all the difference in the world, because I think feeling comfortable on the set is half the battle to creating a good character ." Bracco, who first met Buscemi on the set of Jim Jarmusch's "Mystery Train," is one of several cast members, including Mark Boone Junior, Eszter Balint, Debi Mazar and Seymour Cassel, who have known Buscemi, and each other, for many years. Mark Boone recalls, "I started hanging out with Steve in 1982. We wrote a lot of theater, we even had a band. I basically taught him everything he knows! Seriously, I feel like this is such a great script and I trust Steve's judgement so much that this project has just taken on a life of its own for me. It's like being at home." Mazar, who first worked with Buscemi on the set of Alexandre Rockwell's "In the Soup," concurs: "This was a really collaborative and comfortable film to work on. I had a blast improvising. " Mazar used her immediate understanding of Crystal, a local woman who gets picked up by Tommy at Trees Lounge, as the basis from which to experiment. "Crystal's the neighborhood girl. Although our lives are different, I really knew the aura of the character having grown up in Queens. " Like Mazar, Eszter Balint felt connected to her character, Mike's disillusioned wife Marie, on several personal levels. She notes, "Marie's trapped. She's an outsider who wants more than the people around her do. I definitely can understand that feeling of wanting more and the funk that comes when a relationship takes a bad turn. Steve has created a character that is open to interpretation so I was able to add in my own take on her." Balint has been friends with Buscemi for years and was one of several cast members filling roles that were written expressly for them. She adds, "because we've been friends for so long and because Steve had me in mind for Marie, the set was a very easy place to be. We all had a lot of respect for each other. " Respect for actors seems to be Buscemi's trademark, which indeed puts him in a league with his inspiration, Cassavetes. Each actor in "Trees Lounge" was drawn to the opportunity to create a character fully, with the guidance of a director who understands the craft of acting from the inside out. So tempting was an opportunity like this one, that many actors took time out in between, or in the middle of, other projects simply to fill featured roles. Among those were Samuel L. Jackson, who flew into New York for one day for his role; Mimi Rogers, who made herself available in between shooting another film; and Daniel Baldwin, who was, at that time, starring in the NBC series "Homicide" and drove the long route from Baltimore to New York one weekend to play Debbie's overbearing father, Jerry.
Seemingly insurmountable scheduling difficulties and complex travel plans aside, "Trees Lounge"
was shot in just 24 days from August 15 through September 12, 1995. In addition to Buscemi's
hometown of Valley Stream, Long Island, locations throughout the New York City boroughs of
Brooklyn and Queens were used to recreate Tommy Basilio' s working class, suburban
surroundings. Unfortunately, the original Trees Lounge, a favorite old Valley Stream hangout
frequented by Buscemi and his friends, had been converted into a far more polished sports bar
years before principal photography began. A very suitable substitute was found in The Assembly
Bar, a cozy true dive in the Glendale section of Queens, New York. Despite the enormous
amount of film equipment that had to be carefully set inside a relatively tiny space, The Assembly
--the "new" Trees --quickly developed that familiar dive-away-from-home feeling that is the very
essence of"Trees Lounge," the bar and the film, and the odd collection of characters who can be
found inside.
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By Emily Forster
Independent-film actor Steve Buscemi, for example, has serious problems in the secrets department. In his early days, he tried to keep his acting from friends and co-workers, but failed miserably. "When I first took the job (as a firefighter in New York City), I didn't want to tell any of the guys that I had any interest in acting," recalls Buscemi. "But I heard about this crazy guy in Engine 24 (of the fire department) who did movies. He rode a motorcycle and he lived in the Village, and you could tell he was a definite outsider on the job. Everybody loved him, but he wasn't your typical married, living-in-Staten Island type of guy. "When I met him and told him I lived in the east Village, he totally busted me. He was like 'What do you do? There's some reason you're living in that neighborhood.' And then he got me involved in a theater group he was working in and then everybody knew." Buscemi's secret is out. After his role as Mr. Pink in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," Buscemi began to collect a cult-like following. And now there are several bizarre but oddly likable roles in films like the Coen brothers' "Fargo" and the upcoming Robert Altman film "Kansas City" that Buscemi can boast about. But he doesn't boast, self-congratulate, or even easily accept a compliment concerning his directorial and writing debut in his new film "Trees Lounge."
But doing press is easier than making a film. After seven months dedicated to writing the script, Buscemi spent over three years attempting to pull together a meager $1 million for production. Although the process was frustrating, like doing interviews, he accepts that it is a necessary sacrifice for his film. "What the hell else am I gonna do?" asks Buscemi. "You have something that you want to do, you try to see it through. My only fear was that by the time I got the money, the material wouldn't be fresh to me anymore. And in fact when we did get the money I started to really look at the script and rewrite it a little bit just to make it new again for myself. But also the script needed work. There always seems to be room for improvement." Part of the script's freshness came from Buscemi's use of actual life experiences. With his extremely eclectic life, he was able to draw on characters and experiences as a stand-up comedian, firefighter and, of course, ice cream truck driver. "I've worked with so many great guys. Especially in the fire department, they were really character studies. Very funny guys," Buscemi laughs, his snaggled teeth poking through his uneven smile. "I've been very lucky. I've had a lot of interesting jobs that I'm grateful for because I think it's good for writers to have some real-life experiences." Some of those personal adventures were more influential to "Trees Lounge" than others. Driving an ice cream truck, for example, is depicted in the film as relaxing, but dull. And from the way Buscemi describes his own feelings about selling ice cream to kids in the suburbs, it is clear that he had no problem translating this personal experience into a cinematic one. "It's long hours to really make any kind of money at it," remembers Buscemi. "You really have to work six or seven days from morning 'til night. But I really do get along well with kids, and that was fun. But sometimes it would get boring if business wasn't good and sometimes it got lonely." Jobs he has taken and people he has studied are not the only influences that have affected "Trees Lounge." Although Buscemi has generally worked with renowned directors like Martin Scorsese and Tarantino, he has followed directing examples from various filmmakers in order to make a movie unique from films by those who directed him. "I've been influenced by a lot of people," says Buscemi. "I love Scorsese as a filmmaker but I think his world and Tarantino's world are not what I am going for. What I like about them is they make character-driven genre films. But for what I wanted to do, it didn't fall into a genre. It's just really slice of life. And so Cassavetes and films like 'Fat City' and 'Wise Blood,' they just have more of a similar feel for what I was after." Buscemi did emulate Tarantino in terms of amassing an eclectic cast. The colorful group rages from Samuel L. Jackson, Daniel Baldwin (of the Alec, Billy and Stephen clan) and Debi Mazar to Buscemi's brother, father and son. Buscemi does not chalk up these casting calls to nepotism alone. He feels that he was as entitled to put in his family members as he was to cast Jackson, Baldwin and Mazar. "In the case of my brother, he's an actor and I've always wanted to work with him," explains Buscemi. "I thought, 'Why wait for somebody else to give us the opportunity to work together?' I decided I should just do that myself. My father didn't have a speaking role. I just wanted to put him in there because he's in a funeral scene where it's all Tommy's family, so who better than to have my father to give it that authenticity? And my son, I just wanted to involve him. I asked him if he wanted to do it and he said, 'ya.' It wasn't something I wanted to force upon him but when you do a film like this you don't get to see your family much, so I took advantage of any time I could get them on set." Buscemi will have more of a chance to see his family on his next project. Relinquishing any directorial efforts, he will play a convict in Simon West's "Con Air" with Nicholas Cage. "I don't think I can do a better job than what Simon West is doing," says Buscemi. "He's really got his hands full. It's a relief not to have that responsibility. It's not my film, it's his, so I can just enjoy acting. If I want to direct again, then I'll do it." It's no surprise that Buscemi is secretive about future directing desires. With his "Trees Lounge" script, similar to his acting, he did not want anyone to know about it. "I was very tentatively showing the script around because I was very intimidated by the idea of directing," admits Buscemi. "I was hesitant about it until Stanley Tucci, we're good friends from acting together, he called me one day and said that he had a screenplay. He was doing a reading of it, and asked if I would do the reading. "It was when I did his reading that I thought, 'This is similar in feel to what I'm trying to do.' It was really inspiring to me that somebody else was trying to get something very personal made in a character-driven film. So I showed him my script, but before that I was tentative even to show my good friends this thing that I had written." Buscemi attributes his reluctance to talk about his acting and directing partially to his roots. As it is clearly depicted in "Trees Lounge," Buscemi's home town of Valley Stream is a typically blue-collar community. "In the beginning they probably thought that I was a little bit crazy for wanting to pursue my career," says Buscemi. "People there had been supportive. They used to come see me when I was doing plays and they get a big kick out of seeing me on TV or in the films. But in the beginning it wasn't something that I felt very comfortable telling anybody about because the suburbs, in Long Island anyway, are just not very conducive to anything cultural or creative. That's a shame but that's the way it is."
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Some people are better at keeping secrets than others.
Slumped in a chair at a trendy restaurant/bar facing Wilshire Boulevard, Buscemi's subdued voice competes with blaring sirens and roaring traffic in the Beverly Hills business district. The New York native is in town to promote his efforts in writing, directing and starring in "Trees Lounge," a movie based on how Buscemi imagines what his life would be like without acting. The difference between main character Tommy Basilio and the real life Buscemi is that Basilio has no career and no direction. He hangs out at local bar, Trees Lounge (proving the film with a title), drives an ice cream truck with no other money-making options, and struggles to be a responsible adult.