Steve Buscemi
The Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama stands as one of the most prominent recognitions in Steve Buscemi's career, marking a high point for an actor who has worked across film, television, and stage over several decades. The award reflects the range of a performer who has taken on roles as a film actor, character actor, television actor, stage actor, voice actor, and comedian, while also working as a film director, television director, film producer, and screenwriter.
Buscemi was born on December 13, 1957, in Brooklyn, and grew up to attend Valley Stream Central High School before going on to Nassau Community College and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. Before establishing himself in the entertainment industry, he worked as a firefighter, a chapter of his life that preceded his emergence as one of the more versatile figures in American film and television. His training at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute provided a formal foundation for the acting work that would follow.
Over the course of his career, Buscemi accumulated a number of awards and nominations that reflect his work in both film and television. In addition to his Golden Globe, he received an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male, a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. He also received Film Independent Spirit Awards and Actor Awards more broadly.
Buscemi's work as a filmmaker extended his presence behind the camera as well as in front of it, with credits as a film director, television director, and producer alongside his performing roles. His Screen Actors Guild Award for ensemble performance in a drama series points to his sustained engagement with long-form television as a significant part of his output.
Quotes by Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi's insights on:
Whenever you do something that is in a continuous take, and something that we're not used to doing, because it was all in the details of if you don't make one move seem natural, it can give away all of it.
I never did improv professionally, but that was certainly in my training as an actor. I like it.
All the roles I play, I don’t see any of my roles in films that they’re typically leading men.
They’re not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
I don’t think I’m that much different from any other working actor that’s trying to make a living.
Oftentimes you’ll see stuff that makes it into the mainstream that has been influenced by things that are clearly not from the mainstream.
I never did improv professionally, but that was certainly in my training as an actor. I like it. Actually, when I did theater, I used to have a partner, and that was the way we used to write a lot of our sketches, through improvisation. So it’s something I feel comfortable with.
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.
I have a dresser, who literally is a guy who makes sure the tie is right. It’s a little bit of a process. I could probably do it by myself, but it would take me three times as long.
