To promote the new documentary he’s co-producing, called “Check It,” Steve Buscemi participated in a Reddit AMA on Monday. According to the actor, the documentary follows, “A gay street gang of 14-22 year olds struggling to survive in the city with the highest LGBT hate crime rate in the nation. The directors, Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer, have been filming this amazing group of kids for the past three years and focus on a point in their lives when they’ve seen a ray of hope, in the fashion world.” Buscemi promoted the film’s Indiegogo campaign to help the directors raise funds to finish editing the film. He then answered various questions pertaining to his past films, his roles on television (including his favorites), what he thinks about a “Con Air” sequel and most importantly, sandwiches.
He loved working on “Ghost World”…even though the director wasn’t very focused on him.
Buscemi was asked what he thought of the film’s ending, specifically if he thinks it’s open ended or not. “I don’t know, if there is a definite answer. I love that it’s open to interpretation. She gets on that bus, and… I hope that she’s going somewhere good. I loved working on that film. Thora Birch was incredible to work with. Scarlett Johannson and Terry Zwigoff, they were really smart and very funny and paid attention to every detail. The director would get obsessed with people in the background. Sometimes, after Thora and I would finish a scene, we would see Terry walk up to us, and we would think he was going to say something to us, but he would walk right by us and give very specific directions to the background actors, telling them, ‘Okay, let’s do this again!'”
While the characters he plays aren’t exactly “him,” he does channel a lot of his own personality.
“I don’t think you can point to any one character and say that that’s ‘me’ but, with any role I play, I only have myself, to put myself into it, so there will be aspects of my personality that will come through. Or, I guess, exaggerations of my personality. And sometimes that’s fun to do – like in a character like Mr. Pink, where I would not want to be that person in real life, but it was certainly fun to explore aspects of my personality. Where I could be that person.
He learned the hard way that it’s never a good sign to get a call from David Chase. (SPOILER)
Buscemi was asked whether he knew the fate of his character on “The Sopranos” from the start. “Well, I signed up for two seasons, so I fully expected to come back for another season…Towards the end of that season, it was Season 5, I got a message on my phone from David Chase, and the joke on set was, ‘You never want to get a phone call from David Chase.’ And so I called him back, and he asked me if I wanted to have lunch the following day, I said sure, he picked a restaurant, and I got off the phone and thought ‘Maybe this is a good thing, maybe there’s something else he has me in mind for, it doesn’t necessarily mean that my character was going to get whacked.’ So I met him for lunch, I was thinking about it, didn’t sleep much, and I got to the lunch and the first thing he said was: ‘I’m sorry. We’re going to have to kill you.’ Something like that. I don’t remember his exact words, but it was to the effect that there was just no way that my character could conceivably live doing what he did. And of course, I understood! But I was sad that i wasn’t coming back, because it was such a wonderful show to work on.”
He’s a big Peter Dinklage fan. (Aren’t we all?)
Buscemi was asked about his favorite TV shows. “Well, John Oliver’s show is really, really good. And I like ‘The Daily Show.’ And I think Larry Wilmore is doing a great job on his show. I’ll be very sorry to see Jon Stewart go. I think he’s just been amazing every year that he’s been on. What do I like? Well, ‘Breaking Bad.’ I guess that’s not current, but that’s something I really like…what’s on now? ‘Game of Thrones,’ that’s a good show…and I love watching Peter Dinklage. You know, I’ve worked with Peter a lot over the years. Our first movie that we did was called ‘Living in Oblivion,’ Peter played a character in a dream sequence that I did.”
He admires “The Big Lebowski” even though appreciation for it took a long time.
“I know that people love that film. It’s always hard to relate funny stories. But I’m so happy that that is a film that has gotten a lot of attention over the years. Because when it first came out, I think it was – not that it wasn’t received well, but I think that initially, people (or critics anyway) were mystified by it. This was coming after ‘Fargo.’ That, you know, ‘Fargo’ was their first film that really broke into the mainstream. Probably any other filmmakers would have followed that film with something as equally as commercial, and they decided to go with ‘The Big Lebowski.’ And I think it took years for that film to develop a following…So it’s so satisfying to see a film like that get made to begin with, and then turn into a classic that people enjoy seeing over and over again.”
He’s down for a sequel to “Con Air” (Aren’t we all?)
“Um…well, I’m kinda curious what happened to Garland Greene? I guess if he got on another plane, haha, that could be a ‘Con Air 2.’ Sure! I had a lot of fun making that film. And I thought it was a great cast, and I thought Jerry Bruckheimer and Simon West put together a really great cast, and it was fun to hang out in the desert with all of them. So yeah!”
He refuses to answer personal questions…about sandwiches.
Buscemi was asked what he would put on a sandwich his last day on Earth. “You know, I have to be honest. It’s these questions that make me nervous. I don’t know why! I think it’s a very personal thing to ask! You can say that: I’m kidding. But yeah, I don’t know why these questions make me nervous. But they do!”
And finally, when asked what the best life advice he could give a young person is…
“Don’t take any advice from me.”
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