"While on the screen, Steve Buscemi has garnered a career playing often wildly gregarious, often oddball characters, the real life Buscemi is quite the antithesis of many of the characters he plays. An often quiet, reflective actor who shuns publicity exc

While on the screen, Steve Buscemi has garnered a career playing often wildly gregarious, often oddball characters, the real life Buscemi is quite the antithesis of many of the characters he plays. An often quiet, reflective actor who shuns publicity except when he has a worthwhile film to promote, Buscemi has often played characters on the periphery of mainstream society. Whether it's the journalist who reluctantly interviews a celebrity in his latest film Interview, the tabloid photographer of the Sundance hit, Delirious, or even Templeton the Rat in Charlotte's Web, Buscemi thrives on playing society's often-abnormal outsider.

The actor says that he is interested in "characters that have a past have problems, are complex and who are struggling, which to me are just more interesting to play with." While the actor does appear in Hollywood's mainstream films, it is clear that he finds greater interest in the world of independent cinema, a world in which these kinds of characters inhabit. "I think they may be just not as well developed in the studio films, just from my personal experience.

I mean maybe in a more commercial film you're just not getting the whole story because usually those characters are the supporting players and in some of the more independent films those characters are more upfront and so therefore we do get to learn more about them." Buscemi clearly relished faking on the remake of the Dutch film Interview, which he both directs and stars in. He plays a cynical political reporter who reluctantly agrees to do a puff piece on a seemingly vacuous film star [played by British beauty Sienna Miller].

The interview takes on a very different slant altering initial preconceptions. "When I saw the original [Dutch film] I really loved it. I was just really impressed by the performances, by the script, the story and the way it was shot, so it was something that I was excited about working on.

" And taking on the lead role was something he thought about once he agreed to direct the film. "I sort of had it in the back of my mind that this would be a really wonderful part to play but I think I was a little intimidated at first about having to be the director and an actor but actually when talking about it with my wife, she really convinced me that I should play the part." Interview is Buscemi's fifth theatrical feature.

Asked if his criteria for choosing projects as a director differ from those as an actor, Buscemi says that he doesn't have to make a living as a director. "I'm lucky that I can do that as an actor but that requires going after some more commercial fare, which I'm grateful that I have an opportunity to do. But I feel like the films that I've directed are close in spirit to a lot of the films that I've acted in as well.

So I'm fortunate that I can make my living as an actor and therefore be a little bit choosier with the projects that I get involved with directing." He has two other films due out a few months apart, both of which represent Buscemi's varied interests.