Steve Buscemi Quotes

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Steve Buscemi

Profession : Actor

Birth : December 13, 1957

When I moved to the East Village in the late seventies, I wanted to be a street performer, so I practiced daily. I never did work up the skills or the courage to perform on the street, though.

Steve Buscemi

The thrill of performing - that's something that hasn't changed for me. That simultaneous joy of creating something and sharing it with an audience - it's the same now as it was then, when it was just my cousins' birthday party.

Steve Buscemi

There's a certain type of character that you can't help but come in contact with growing up and living in Brooklyn and Long Island. A certain mixture of moxie, heart, and a wise guy sense of humor.

Steve Buscemi

I read the script and decide if a particular character looks fun to play. I look for complexity and a sense of humor. Those are crucial, real things to life.

Steve Buscemi

I just like playing interesting, complex, complicated characters. I like films that also have an element of humor.

Steve Buscemi

Communication is the key, and it's one thing I had to learn-to talk to the actors. I was so involved with the visual and technical aspects that I would forget about the actors.

Steve Buscemi

My real training as an actor was when I started doing theatre.

Steve Buscemi

What was frustrating about Armageddon was the time I spent not doing anything. It was a big special effects film, and I wasn't crazy about pretending I was in outer space. It feels ridiculous.

Steve Buscemi

When I was in pre-production for Trees Lounge, I was hearing the cinematographer talking with the production designer about colours and this and that, and feeling like I was losing control.

Steve Buscemi

I never made a daring rescue, which is the story people want to hear. I did go to my share of fires.

Steve Buscemi

They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.

Steve Buscemi

I was really young, just playing with puppets a lot and doing all the voices and acting it out - normal kid stuff. But then I'd hear my mother talking about it to her relatives, marveling at it as if it was something unique. And it made me realize, 'Oh, maybe I do have a talent for something.'

Steve Buscemi

I've always tried to have a healthy take on the characters I play; they are only characters I play.

Steve Buscemi

I didn't really like the aloneness of doing stand-up.

Steve Buscemi

Bob Altman had this relaxed but serious attitude. Everybody loved him. I wanted him to adopt me.

Steve Buscemi

Directing television is really hard - it's so fast. You shoot an hour show in seven days.

Steve Buscemi

Growing up, yeah, I had a magic kit with learn tricks and learn card tricks, but I was never... I used to watch whatever magic special was on as a kid, but then, it's not that I lost interest, but to be a magician, you really, it's really hard work. Learning lines is hard enough; learning sleight of hand, that's real practice.

Steve Buscemi

Trees Lounge is based on my own life. Both my parents like the movie. My father, of course, thinks it's a masterpiece.

Steve Buscemi

My favorite review described me as the cinematic equivalent of junk mail. I don't know what that means, but it sounds like a dig.

Steve Buscemi

In the beginning, it wasn't even a question of deciding I'm going to do independent film and not commercial films - I wasn't being offered any commercial films, and there wasn't an independent scene.

Steve Buscemi