Steve Buscemi Was a Firefighter on September 11, Returns to Role in The King of Staten Island

Before Steve Buscemi was an actor he was a New York City firefighter. In his new movie THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND, Bucsemi plays a NYFD firehouse chief who brings in a homeless neighborhood man played by Pete Davidson. The story is partially based on Pete Davidson’s life and is a tribute to his sister, mother, and his late father died as a NYFD firefighter on September 11.

It wouldn’t be until years after the attacks on 9/11 that it’d become known that Steve Buscemi heroically put his FDNY uniform back on that fateful day to help with rescue efforts at ground zero. Very few photographs and no interviews exist because he declined them. He wasn’t there for the publicity.