Steve Buscemi: The Sundance Kid

In Hollywood, Steve Buscemi is the comic you recruit to pepper your star vehicle with some jittery laughs; he’s the nervy villain in your action movie; the virtuoso weirdo in your Adam Sandler comedy; the guy standing next to Nicolas Cage. But at the Sundance Film Festival, which kicks off January 18, Buscemi is an indie god among video-store clerks: patron saint of character actors, working stiffs, and last-true-believers everywhere. In L.A., the paparazzi might miss him, but in Sundance, they hound him—and this year, he knows how they feel.