Dubbed by journalists as the “King of the Indies,” Steve Buscemi has played in more than 89 movies and 16 television performances in his two-decade career. He has also worked on films like the 1996 comedy Tree Lounge which he wrote and directed, and the 2000 drama Animal Factory which he directed. He also directed four episodes HBO’s The Sopranos from 2001 to 2006, and the 2002 pilot of HBO’s Baseball Wives.

Born as Steven Vincent Buscemi on December 13, 1957, in Brooklyn, New York, Buscemi usually plays bad-boy and sleazy character roles such as cons, thugs, and serial killers. In one movie, 2001’s Ghost World his character, Seymour was the closest Buscemi has ever come to playing a romantic lead.

Buscemi graduated from Valley Stream Central High School in Valley Stream, New York in 1975. During his last year of high school he became interested in acting and moved to Manhattan to study acting at the famed Lee Strasberg Institute when he finished high school. 

Although small (only five-foot-nine) and light (125 pounds), Buscemi was in good enough shape to wrestle on his high school varsity squad. He must have kept himself in excellent shape because from 1980 to 1984 he worked as a firefighter with Engine Company Number 55 in the Little Italy section of New York.

After the World Trade Center attack, he returned to his old firehouse to work 12-hour shifts for a week helping his old comrades look for missing firefighters. 

In 1986, he starred in his first movie, a drama called Parting Glances, as Nick, a man suffering from AIDS.

In 1989, Buscemi appeared in the TV mini series Lonesome Dove alongside  a star-studded cast that included Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Diane Lane, Robert Urich, Rick Schroder, and Anjelica Huston.

Since then he has appeared or narrated in at least one movie or television show a year. Some of his most memorable roles have been in Quentin Tarrantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) with Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, and Chris Penn; Airheads (1994) with Brendan Fraser, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Judd Nelson, David Arquette, Michael Richards and Joe Mantegna; Pulp Fiction (1994) with Uma Thurman, John Travolta, Samuel Jackson, Eric Stoltz, Bruce Willis, and Rosanna Arquette; Fargo (1996) with William H Macy and Frances McDormand; Con Air (1997) with Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich, and Dave Chappelle; Mr. Deeds (2002) with Adam Sandler, Winona Ryder and John Tuturro, and Spy Kids 2 and 3 (2002, 2003). He narrated the voice of Randall Boggs in Monsters Inc (2002), Templeton in Charlotte’s Web (2006), and Nebbercracker in Monsters House (2006). He also appears in almost every Adam Sandler movie, often in unbilled roles.

In April 2001, Buscemi was stabbed in the throat, head, and arm at the Firebelly Lounge in Wilmington, North Carolina when he intervened in a bar fight between actor Vince Vaughn, screenwriter Scott Rosenberg, and a local man named Timothy Fogerty. Buscemi now has a noticeable scar on his cheek which is hidden with heavy make-up for movies.

In 2003, he narrated the audio tour at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, which was part of the facility’s year long tourist promotion event.

Buscemi has been married to Jo Andres since 1987. The couple has one son, Lucien Buscemi (born in 1991) who plays bass and sings in the alternative punk band, Fiasco.