Steve Buscemi might still be working shifts as a New York City firefighter at the Engine Co. 55 firehouse in Little Italy. He told ShortList, “I’d probably still be on the fire department. I would have had 30 years on, so I no doubt would have continued doing that.” He spent four years putting out fires while taking acting classes. In an interview with GQ, Buscemi revealed that his co-workers didn’t know about his hidden talent until he drank too much while partying with them. He then started mimicking his colleagues. Luckily, they loved it. Buscemi shared they started supporting his shows, saying, “They started coming to see the plays I was doing.”
And Buscemi is no shirker. He was a real-life hero when he returned to Engine Co. 55 following the terrorist attacks that devastated New York City on 9/11/2001. A Facebook post revealed that Buscemi worked 12-hour shifts “digging and sifting through the rubble from the World Trade Center looking for survivors.” The post noted that “very few photographs and no interviews exist because [Buscemi] declined them. He wasn’t there for the publicity.” Two years later, Buscemi was arrested for rallying with the firefighters as they demanded an increase in wages. In 2020, Buscemi was cast as a firefighter in “King of Staten Island” and spoke about his on-the-job experience as a fireman. “Firefighters are really funny and they can be brutal with each other and I think that’s captured really well in the film,” he told Entertainment Weekly.
