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Steve Buscemi is not your typical actor.
Friendly, witty and terminally cool, Buscemi, who has starred in such cinematic cult hits as Reservoir Dogs, Barton Fink, Miller’s Crossing, Airheads, Billy Madison and several classic episodes of The Sopranos comes across like just every other normal, native New Yorker who rides the subway every day to work (which happens to be a studio lot, in his case). But, from the moment you meet him, you sense there is something extra special about Buscemi. And, the longer that you speak to him, you start to realize what makes him different from the hundreds of other thespians who make movies – there’s isn’t a trace of bullshit when it comes to Buscemi. Basically, he calls it like he sees it. “Sometimes, telling the truth is not always what people want to hear in the business,” the Brooklyn-born Buscemi admits. “There’s no use in trying to fool anybody or say something is good when it’s not. It all comes out in the wash one way or another. That’s why I would rather do a small independent movie with a great script than a movie that costs $200 million dollars, with no real script, and artistically, it bombs. It might make some money, but I’d rather do something that I’m proud of.”
Buscemi (married and the father of one), is intensely proud of his latest project, the Hue Rhodes-directed Saint John Of Las Vegas, the story of John, a former compulsive gambler who cleans up his proverbial act and moves to Albuquerque. However, after living a good, sober and “normal” life for quite a while, John’s work for an auto insurance company, inadvertently, sends him on assignment to Las Vegas. In Sin City once again, John quickly realizes he must either fight off and destroy his internal demons once and for all or he’ll fall back into his bad habits and lose everything – forever. John was a character, Buscemi explains, he “just had to play.”
“I found that I liked this guy, even with his problems,” he admits. “As an actor, you want to play characters that are going through something, that have a struggle. And there was something endearing about this guy who obviously had been through something horrible in Vegas. And he was starting over. But he had convinced himself he wasn’t addicted to gambling anymore, so he had to buy not one but multiple lottery tickets a day, even if it meant spending his last five bucks on them. So that was interesting to me as an actor, to get in there and try to understand and figure out who this guy was.”
Although Buscemi is part of an industry that thrives on excess and often champions people with vices, does he have a few of his own that he’d mind sharing? “Sure, I’m probably a workaholic, I do like to work – that’s my worst vice,” he says with a hearty laugh. “Of course, I have vices, but hopefully I have some control. But what was interesting about John – playing a character in this movie who really thought he could depend on luck. To me, that was both sad and funny. I mean, the whole script had those elements of sadness. And yet, these characters were funny and such wonderful characters made my work easy, just reacting to people around me. I love that.”
In most of his films, Buscemi always seems to be left romantically holding the bag. In a stroke of great luck for Steve and his onscreen alter ego, John actually “gets the girl” in Saint John Of Las Vegas. “Isn’t that amazing?” Buscemi asks with a laugh. “But, I don’t think of it as, ‘Ooh, I get the girl in this.’ And I mean that. I’ve been in a lot of movies, guy movies, where it’s nice to have a whatever, a romantic relationship in a film, whether it’s good or bad. And certainly, working with someone like Sarah (Silverman), who’s work I really admired, I found that in real life, she’s really, really sweet, too. She brought a lot of that sweetness to the character. But her comedic persona, at least for me, I wouldn’t think that she’s the best person to play this part. As it turned out, she really was. She impressed me with her choices and her acting, and she was funny to boot. What could be better?”
A low-budget independent, Saint John Of Las Vegas is already receiving great critical reviews. This comes as welcomes news to Buscemi (who is also a producer and director when he’s not acting) who says he’s been in his fair share of blockbuster “sure bets” that immediately tanked at the box office. He’s also aware of the good kharma surrounding Saint John Of Las Vegas, but he’s learned his lesson about expecting a hit and waking up to a box office flop. “Show business is just one big gamble, anyway, it really is,” Buscemi says. “ Certainly more for the investors. If you wanted to make money, you’d probably have a better shot going to a casino than investing in a movie, I have to say. If you’re going into acting or directing to make money, I’d say you’re crazy. Talk about a crapshoot. I think we do this because we love it, and any of us who are able to make a living at it are very fortunate and it’s very rare.”
