(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Thu 2 April 2026 15:15, UK
It’s likely, given that you are a connoisseur of all things culture and a true film aficionado, that you are very aware of the popular social media meme that features Steve Buscemi in a hoodie and baseball cap with a skateboard over his shoulders uttering the immortal line, “How do you do fellow kids?” as he tries to ingratiate himself with some cool youngsters at a high school.
That scene comes from the hit Tina Fey comedy 30 Rock, in which Buscemi is playing a private detective in his 40s reminiscing about how he once went undercover at the school, with predictably disastrous results. Aside from being used in countless situations these days when brands try to awkwardly shoehorn themselves into comments under TikTok videos, it actually serves as a nice bit of irony too, because for more than 30 years, anything he has been asked to be involved in, he has enthusiastically welcomed with open arms.
Which is because there are few more sought-after talents in Hollywood than Buscemi, an actor who, more than almost anyone else, has successfully walked the line between critically feted and commercially successful, balancing huge blockbusters like Con Air and Armageddon with multi-award-winning TV like The Sopranos and more thoughtful Coen brothers fare like 1996’s magnificent Fargo.
Although he won a Golden Globe for the first season of Boardwalk Empire, perhaps the only surprising thing about him is that he’s never been nominated by the Academy.
He is, however, very careful about which roles and projects he takes on, as well as being fiercely private, which is why he’ll often take voiceover work instead of being in front of the camera, or he’ll direct film and TV as he has since 1996. But as popular as he is, with a career full of highlights, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Buscemi, and he hasn’t got every role he’s gone for, especially in the early days of his career, before Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs brought him global attention.
The New Yorker was a comedy performer in the city in the mid to late 1980s while he auditioned for TV and film parts, one of which came in 1987 for the Rain Man director Barry Levinson’s comedy Tin Men, led by Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito. Set in the early 1960s, it told the story of two aluminium metal salesmen who have a minor car prank that escalates into a full-on feud.
Buscemi recalled his disastrous try-out almost 40 years ago to chat show host Steven Colbert, recalling, “I studied the sides, the script, and I went in there, did my reading, my audition, and he [Levinson] went, ‘That was really good, that’s really good, Steve. Alright, let’s try it again’.”
He explained further about the kind of feedback received, adding, “He gave me a very specific note, and I don’t remember what that was, but he wanted me to add a different colour to it, or shading. I went, ‘OK’, and then I read it again, the exact same way I just did it. There was this silence, and we both just looked at each other, and I think I even said, ‘That was the same, wasn’t it?’ He said, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK’. Needless to say, I did not get that part.”
Fortunately for the actor, who was then in his early 30s, he did get plenty of other parts after that, and he didn’t have to wait too long. His first of five movies with the Coen brothers arrived with Miller’s Crossing in 1990, and less than a year later, he was cast by Tarantino as Mr Pink.
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