The Sopranos Changed The Way Steve Buscemi Chooses Roles
Steve Buscemi has been in some of the best films and television series out there, from "Reservoir Dogs" to "Boardwalk Empire." His work spans a multitude of genres, but many of his most notable roles have a single through-line: violence. Buscemi has been cast as many a villainous character in gritty crime dramas, but in more recent years, the actor has moved largely into voice acting for children's animated features like "Boss Baby" or comedic shows like "Miracle Workers" and "Bupkis." What triggered this major career change for Buscemi? As it turns out, one of the best television shows of all time caused the actor to lose his appetite for on-screen bloodshed.
Although he had only a minor recurring role in "The Sopranos," Buscemi was instrumental in the series. Not only was his character a major part of Tony and Christopher's past and one of the show's best characters, but Buscemi also stepped behind the camera for some of the most notable episodes of the six-season run. The season 3 episode, "Pine Barrens," is widely regarded as one of the show's best and even earned Buscemi an Emmy nomination for his direction. Like most people, the actor-director holds the series in very high esteem.
"I think it's the best," he told Charlie Rose in 2007 after the series came to a close. "I really think it's not only the best television show that's been on but I think it's really better than most movies or could compare with any of the greatest films. And they did it week after week for seven seasons, which I think is an amazing feat. The writing, the directing, the cast, was just top-notch across the boards."
So how did a show that Buscemi loved so much change the course of his acting career?
He doesn't have the same tolerance for violence
When series creator David Chase first reached out to Steve Buscemi about "The Sopranos," the actor wasn't sure how well the would mesh with the culture of the series.
"I thought I wouldn't be right for the show," he confessed on the Talking Sopranos podcast in 2020. "I mean, I'd played a lot of bad guys but I'd never played a wise guy or like a mob guy. I'm only Italian on my dad's side, my mom is Irish, English Dutch — so I have blue eyes, I'm pale. I didn't think I fit in that world."
At first, his only role on the show would be as a director — Buscemi had already directed two feature films and several episodes of "Oz," where he first met Edie Falco. After directing "Pine Barrens" in season 3 and "Everybody Hurts" in season 4, Chase asked Buscemi to join the season 5 cast as Tony Blundetto, a reformed mob man that was trying to go straight after time behind bars.
"I was excited to play this character who was not only a new mob guy coming on the scene, he actually had a history with Chrissy and with Tony, like he grew up with them and he went away," Buscemi explained. "And he could've been one of them had he not had that one job where Tony didn't show up cuz he had a panic attack and Tony B. got arrested and kind of took the fall. So it had such wonderful background information to it."
The actor was signed on for two seasons, but Tony B. only made it to the season 5 finale before being whacked in a political mercy killing by Tony S. This was one of many on-screen deaths for Buscemi, but he vowed (half-heartedly) that it would be his last.
Where do you go after you get killed by Tony Soprano?
Following his appearance on "The Sopranos," Steve Buscemi was more reluctant to play violent criminals than he was as a younger man. "I don't have the tolerance for violence that I used to," he admitted to GQ in 2020.
After being thrown into a wood chipper in "Fargo" and gunned down by America's most beloved mafia man in "The Sopranos," Buscemi didn't see much room for improvement. "Where does it go after you get killed by Tony Soprano?" the actor continued. "That should be the cutoff."
But it wasn't just dying that Buscemi began to take issue with — it was the killing as well. Immediately following the end of "The Sopranos," the actor starred in "Boardwalk Empire" as Nucky Thompson. Nucky is almost as violent a character as Tony — he too is a crime boss that delegates most of his hits to his henchmen but occasionally pulls the trigger himself. Nucky even shoots a teenager in the back of the head in one brutal "Boardwalk Empire" scene that Buscemi found particularly disturbing. "It was hard for me to divorce myself from the feelings that it was actually me doing it," he added.
Nucky would be Buscemi's last character with a blood lust — and his last on-screen death — for several years to come. The actor's stomach might have weakened a bit over the years, but that doesn't mean he's lost reverence for his former work. He still has a lot of respect for Chase and "The Sopranos," and the feelings are definitely mutual. "Everybody loves him," the series creator gushed to GQ about his former collaborator.
Buscemi's favorite Sopranos scene is a verbal spar
Funnily enough, Steve Buscemi's attitude towards violence reflects the main theme of "The Sopranos". The show examines the effects that a criminal lifestyle has on the human psyche, and the actor was so affected by his own portrayal of violence that he chose to re-route his career. Buscemi might have felt like he didn't fit into the world of "The Sopranos," but there was no one who understood it more — besides perhaps Chase himself.
His character, like the actor himself, is trying to escape from his own kind of pigeonhole. Tony B. always expected to go into a life of crime, having grown up in the same mafioso environment as Tony Soprano and Christopher, but his time in prison made him want to go straight. Once he finds himself on the outside, he realizes that even when he tries to avoid violence, the violence seems to find him. Tony B.'s time in prison and his desire to reform was "the key" to understanding the character, Buscemi said on Talking Sopranos.
Unsurprisingly, the actor's favorite scene as Tony B. has no bloodshed in it — although it is incredibly ruthless.
"One of my favorite scenes, we're having steak dinner," Buscemi recounted on the podcast. "Tony comes up just to see how we're doing, takes us out to a steak dinner, and we fall into this pattern where we're just goofing on Christopher, and it's relentless. It's like they're kids again."
Tapping into childlike wonder has since taken precedence over gritty on-screen murder in Buscemi's acting career, but who knows — maybe we'll see the return of a villainous Nucky type one day, or maybe even a reformed ex-con type like Tony B. Only time will tell, but let's be frank: Buscemi steals every scene he's in, whether he's a cold-blooded killer or a cartoon monster.