"It doesn't matter so much where the material comes from, as long as it's good"
About this Quote
Buscemi’s line is a quiet grenade tossed into an industry obsessed with pedigree. “Where the material comes from” gestures at the Hollywood pecking order: studio scripts with prestige attachments, “serious” theater, revered auteurs, the sanctified canon. He’s waving it off. Not because origins never matter, but because actors live downstream from the gatekeeping. Their job is to make something true, even if the source is a cheap genre flick, a weird indie, or a TV episode written in a week.
The subtext is both democratic and slightly combative. Buscemi built a career on projects that shouldn’t have worked on paper: offbeat crime films, broad comedies, surreal indies, unexpected prestige television. When he says “as long as it’s good,” he’s defending craft over branding. “Good” here isn’t a moral judgment; it’s a standard of vividness: sharp dialogue, a coherent point of view, a world with rules, characters who behave like they’ve met consequences before.
It also doubles as a self-portrait. Buscemi’s persona has always been the antidote to Hollywood’s usual gloss: distinctive, unpretty, precise. This quote reads like an actor’s survival philosophy in an ecosystem that constantly ranks material by budget, awards potential, or cultural seriousness. He’s arguing that quality is the only reliable hierarchy - and that audiences, when they’re paying attention, can tell the difference faster than any executive can.
The subtext is both democratic and slightly combative. Buscemi built a career on projects that shouldn’t have worked on paper: offbeat crime films, broad comedies, surreal indies, unexpected prestige television. When he says “as long as it’s good,” he’s defending craft over branding. “Good” here isn’t a moral judgment; it’s a standard of vividness: sharp dialogue, a coherent point of view, a world with rules, characters who behave like they’ve met consequences before.
It also doubles as a self-portrait. Buscemi’s persona has always been the antidote to Hollywood’s usual gloss: distinctive, unpretty, precise. This quote reads like an actor’s survival philosophy in an ecosystem that constantly ranks material by budget, awards potential, or cultural seriousness. He’s arguing that quality is the only reliable hierarchy - and that audiences, when they’re paying attention, can tell the difference faster than any executive can.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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