Steve Buscemi

I've always tried to have a healthy take on the characters I play; they are only characters I play.

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.

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.

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.

The thrill of performing - that's something that hasn't changed for me. That simultaneous joy of creating something and sharing it with an audience - it's the same now as it was then, when it was just my cousins' birthday party.

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.

It's not like I'm looking for things that I can direct that I can also act in, but when it's right, I feel like the actor side of me wants to have that opportunity.

My dad had a temper. I have a temper. Most people I know have a temper. And I think it comes out mostly with your family. I don't think it's unique to the Buscemis, but it's something I've been able to tap into when I play certain roles.

I was really young, just playing with puppets a lot and doing all the voices and acting it out - normal kid stuff. But then I'd hear my mother talking about it to her relatives, marveling at it as if it was something unique. And it made me realize, 'Oh, maybe I do have a talent for something.'

I didn't really like the aloneness of doing stand-up. The comedians by nature weren't very - I mean, they were sociable, but they hung out in cliques, and it's very hard to get accepted; lots of competition.

Whenever you do something that is in a continuous take, and something that we're not used to doing, because it was all in the details of if you don't make one move seem natural, it can give away all of it.

By nature, I think I am a pretty private person, and that is what is hard even doing interviews for films that I really love doing, because in some ways, it diminishes the experience that I had.