Steve Buscemi Quotes (39 Quotes)

It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I started acting.

I was going to buy a van and move to LA so I could secretly pursue acting without any of my friends knowing.

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

The first movie I had a featured role in was Parting Glances.

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

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

The trend now is to shoot in Canada because it's cheaper, and they don't care what the location is.

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

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

With Animal Factory you'd think that because it's mostly interiors, you could shoot it anywhere. So we shot this in Philadelphia, and we had the cooperation of the prison system.

It doesn't matter to me what the genre is.

On big films there is a lot of pressure on the director, because they have so much money. The way I approach it as an actor is pretty much the same.

I didn't think I'd ever be able to do movies. That was for serious actors.

The director I had most involvement with was Alex Rockwell. He gave me a lot of responsibility as an actor.

I did stand-up. I loved George Carlin and Steve Martin.

I was very surprised that for a while I could only get cast as straight. It was that way for a few years.

I don't tend to think of these characters as losers. I like the struggles that people have, people who are feeling like they don't fit into society, because I still sort of feel that way.

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.

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

All these directors, and I would include the Coen brothers and Quentin, have a very unique vision of what they want. They listen to ideas and make people feel like everyone is making the film.

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.

It doesn't matter so much where the material comes from, as long as it's good.

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.

They're not thinking of how it's going to please a mass audience, ... They're really writing it for themselves, and trusting there's an audience out there for what they have to say. Whenever you make a film, there's always compromises you have to make just to get it made, but you really have to ask yourself, 'How much am I willing to compromise to get it up on screen' and at what point do the compromises mean that you're not really making the movie you wanted to make.

Anything you write, even if you have to start over, is valuable. I let the story write itself through the characters.

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.

I talked with Quentin about where the character came from, and he told me Kansas City. I don't know how somebody talks from Kansas City, so I made him from New York.

Quentin was so passionate and enthusiastic about what he was doing that it touched us all. We really wanted to do a good job for him.

I don't really consider myself a writer. Trees Lounge was really hard for me to write. Right know it's more important to keep directing.

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.

When I was a fireman I was in a lot of burning buildings. It was a great job, the only job I ever had that compares with the thrill of acting. Before going into a fire, there's the same surge of adrenaline you get just before the camera rolls.

It's weird I was not a really tough guy in high school, but I end up playing all of these psychopaths and criminals. I don't really care who they are, as long as they are complicated and going through something that I can understand and put across.

My greatest hope was to get discovered as a comedian and get on a sitcom.

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

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.

I'm terrible at story and structure, but I'm not so bad at writing dialogue.

I usually get freaked out if I'm in a situation where a lot of people recognise me at once.

creativity and independent vision.

It doesn't matter what part I play, I try and commit myself 100 percent.