Steve Buscemi Was Once Worried ‘Reservoir Dogs’ Co-Star Tim Roth Threatened His Career
Actors Tim Roth and Steve Buscemi both starred in Quentin Tarantino’s debut feature Reservoir Dogs. When working with the actor for the first time, Buscemi admitted there was a little envy on his part when it came to his castmate.
How Steve Buscemi and Tim Roth were both cast in ‘Reservoir Dogs’
Buscemi and Roth ended up in Tarantino’s classic Reservoir Dogs film in slightly different ways. They were both well-known actors at the time who Tarantino was a fan of. For Buscemi, Tarantino decided to send the actor a copy of the script, which Buscemi enjoyed reading. Although he couldn’t believe that Tarantino was the brain behind the movie.
“I remember reading the script and thinking that it was written by somebody like Eddy Bunker, who is a real convict. When I first talked to Quentin on the phone, his voice sounded like, ‘Hiya man, how ya doin’? I’m glad you like the script – that’s really cool!’ And I thought this is not the guy who wrote this script,” Buscemi once recalled to The Guardian.
Meanwhile, Roth received his Reservoir Dogs role after a night out personally drinking with the filmmaker. Roth and Tarantino took some beer they bought at a convenience store back to Roth’s place.
“And proceeded to read the entire script,” Roth once told Entertainment Weekly. “Every part in it about 10 times because we were hammered by then. And that’s how I got the job.”
Steve Buscemi once worried ‘Reservoir Dogs’ co-star Tim Roth threatened his career
Reservoir Dogs was the first time Buscemi and Roth would meet and collaborate on a project. But they might have already been familiar enough with each other’s works. Before interviewing the Pulp Fiction star for 1997’s Bomb, Buscemi did a bit of research on Roth’s career.
“To truly appreciate the versatility of his enormous talents I strongly recommend seeking out, however hard it might be, Allen Clarke’s Made In Britain and Meantime by Mike Leigh,” Buscemi said. “Throw in Stephen Frear’s The Hit, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Robert Altman’s Vincent and Theo and you have an impressive array of strong performances in a number of eclectic films made before he bloodied a warehouse floor as Mr. Orange [in Reservoir Dogs] and proceeded to take the States by storm in a slew of risk-taking films.”
But it was also Roth’s versatility and credibility as an actor that sometimes worried Buscemi. As an accomplished actor himself, Buscemi worried that Roth could be seen as a potential threat to his career.
“If there’s one actor I sometimes feel a tinge of jealousy over, it’s Tim. In my paranoid mind I envision the casting director saying, ‘Yeah Buscemi’s okay, but what about Roth?’ I sometimes give him s*** about all the Brit actors who have invaded our turf, but the truth is, I respect his talent and dedication to his craft,” Buscemi said.
Steve Buscemi considered moving before he was cast in ‘Reservoir Dogs’
Without Reservoir Dogs, Buscemi might not have met Roth, and his career might have looked very different. Many actors move to Los Angeles because doing so allows for more film opportunities. It was an option that Buscemi himself was begrudgingly considering due to the state of his career.
“You know, before Reservoir Dogs came out, my wife and I were seriously thinking of moving to LA. I was getting a lot of pressure then from my agent at the time that if I really wanted to make it in the business, I needed to be out there. And I was seriously considering making that move,” Buscemi once told The Talks.
But Tarantino’s debut feature would change that.
“And then when Reservoir Dogs came out, it really opened a lot of doors within the industry where directors or casting directors or producers then started to know my name so it felt like I could actually stay in New York and pursue a career and have confidence that I would be able to be a working actor here. And I’m grateful for that,” he said.
