A BRIEF ELECTRONIC EXCHANGE WITH STEVE BUSCEMI

I first met Steve Buscemi at the cusp of the eighties during the East Village/Downtown Punk renaissance. He and his partner in sketch theatre, Mark Boone Junior, were both seminal players in those stimulating days. Together they produced memorable shows such as the Manhood series. Once in awhile they would look for characters to play characters in their expanding story lines. I myself had the chance to play parallel universe version of myself as a nationally celebrated talk show host in their Big Show performance. I also would play bass from time to time in their band. Steve came up with what I thought was one of the great band names of all time, THE PAWNS OF LOVE. In that relationship he demonstrated a great talent as a lyricist as well as a crooner. One of my favorite songs that he wrote was a country western tune called Rejected. It was mournful, poignant and somehow simultaneously very funny. In an upstate basement somewhere there is an old cassette tape that contains that rare recording and if I find it I promise all brink members that I will post it for the pleasure of all.

Kai: Let's start with the basics such as where and when were you born?

Steve: DEC. 13, 1957 In East New York, Brooklyn. When I was 8 yrs old we moved to Valley Stream, Long Island. I have 3 brothers, one of which, Michael, is also an actor.

Kai: I always thought your comedy work with Mark Boone was very funny. You were a great team. Do you ever consider getting back together for a reunion performance?

Steve: Well, Boone lives in LA and I'm in NY so it's hard. We occasionally get asked to do one night at a benefit or something but we haven't pulled it off yet.

Kai: Do you still write music? What sort of music do you listen to today? Do you own an ipod....are the cds/records you own well organized or in a dusty mess.

Steve: Practically all those sad songs I wrote back then were inspired by a girl I was in love who was away for a month in Europe, with her ex-boyfriend no less. I was convinced our short romance was over. But when she returned, things heated up again between us. Her name is Jo Andres and we've been married now for 17 years. If she ever leaves me, maybe I'll start writing songs again. But I'd much rather be happy with her than writing sad songs without her. The only time I've written a song since then was for Stanley Tucci's 1930's period comedy, The Impostors. In it I played a recently divorced suicidal lounge singer on a cruise ship named Happy Franks. In one scene my character sings The Nearness Of You, then breaks down weeping. Well, for a while it looked like they weren't going to get the rights for the song to be used in the film, so I took it upon myself to write one just in case. It's called Love Is Not For You and it's written in a 30's style. But they eventually got the rights to The Nearness Of You and that's what I sing in the movie.

Yes, I do have an ipod and I listen to a lot of different kinds of music; jazz, blues, standards, rock, whatever. Last year I went on a two week cross country car trip with my son and he played nothing but hard core punk all day for the first five days. It was great.

Kai: What projects do you have in the works? What are you currently working on?

Steve: LONESOME JIM, a film I directed starring Casey Affleck, Liv Tyler, Mary Kay Place, Mark Boone Junior, Seymour Cassel, and Kevin Corrigan is being released March 24th at the IFC Center and other theaters.

It was written by first time screenwriter James Strouse and is a personal, although fictionalized story of him and his eccentric family in Indiana. It's sort of a comedy about depression. We shot it on mini-dv in 18 days, on location in James' parents house and the neighborhood where he grew up. Phil Parmet shot it, and Evan Lurie did the score.

I also acted in Tom DiCillo's latest film called Delirious. I play a paparazzi who "mentors" a homeless dude played by Michael Pitt. It's still in post-production.

And I'm hoping to be in production soon on a film I'm going to direct called INTERVIEW, which is a remake of a Theo van Gogh film. It's about a political journalist who is forced to interview an actress/starlett he has no interest in - but she turns out to be no lightweight. I'll play the journalist and Sienna Miller will play the actress.

I'm also trying to get another film off the ground to direct, an adaptation of William Burroughs' book Queer, but it's been a long hard road.

Kai: I know that you were a responder to the WTC on 911. Where were you when you heard the news?
Can you describe your feelings and can you describe the scene that you witnessed?

Steve: I was at LaGuardia the morning of 9/11 scheduled to fly to Toronto for their Film Festival. All flights were of course canceled and by the time I got home both towers were down.
The next day I went to the firehouse where I used to work, Engine 55, and was taken into the site. I worked there the next few days with Engine 55. They lost five members, one of which was FaustIino Apostol, a friend of mine I used to work with. Being there was like being on another planet, the landscape was surreal. And although it was unbearably sad, it was also incredibly uplifting witnessing and being a small part of the effort that was underway by hundreds of people working together. I can't really do it justice describing it here, but it's an experience that effected me deeply.
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Kai: Were you political views reshaped by the experience?

Steve: My views, no. But it made me more politically active. I feel the Bush administration exploited the terrorist attacks to the hilt and I was helping and hoping to see him lose his job last November.

Kai: Any surprises in finding yourself a father of a teen?
Any tips on child rearing? What does your son think about the characters you play?

Steve: You'd have to ask my son but I think he gets a kick out of some of the characters I play, although he hasn't really seen much of the disturbing films.
I love being his father, but at every age you worry about something.
He's into his teens so of course I'm concerned about drugs, drinking, and sex - but at the same time I have confidence in him to navigate his way through whatever he faces.
Jo and I try to be very active in his life and with his friends without being in his face all the time. He has great friends and most of them are musicians like himself. We love having everyone over our house when they rehearse and I'm happy for them that they have such passion for what they do.

Kai: Describe your relationship to Rockets Redglare. What do you miss most about him?

Steve: Rockets was a friend. I loved him and felt loved by him. He could also be overwhelming to deal with and he pissed me off a lot. I miss his intelligence and his humor, he really made me laugh hard sometimes.

He was also one of kind.