A decade before Kareem Rahma clipped a microphone to a Metro card and started asking New Yorkers for their Subway Takes, Steve Buscemi created an Emmy-winning talk show by chatting with folks on a park bench.
Buscemi had come up with the idea after directing a series of promotional shorts for the band Vampire Weekend, during which he met carpenter Geo Orlando. “I pulled him into the scene, we went on a park bench and did a little scene with the singer Grimes,” Buscemi told Time in 2015. “Geo was so natural and just a great sidekick, if you will, that I said to my producing partner and our producing team, ‘I think I can build a whole show out of Geo and I on park benches.’ ”
AOL Originals thought so too, and Park Bench With Steve Buscemi debuted as a web series in May 2014. It featured the Brooklyn-born actor-director and his sidekick lugging their park bench all over New York to interview guests both famous — Chris Rock, Rosanne Cash, Fred Armisen, GZA and Mayor Bill de Blasio — and non-famous, such as Buddhist nun Ani Trime Lhamo. Buscemi, who was working on the final season of Boardwalk Empire at the same time, served as director and host and shot 12 episodes over five days. The series earned an Emmy nomination for short form nonfiction program that year.
