Steve Buscemi

NEW YORK

STEVE BUSCEMI IS IRKED, but you'd be hard-pressed to notice. The indie icon, who's completed his third directorial feature, ''Lonesome Jim," has just been informed that a women's clothing retailer has illegally appropriated his autograph and likeness for a line of baby doll tees.

But rather than vowing bloody vengeance, as one of his characters might, he merely puts on his glasses to analyze the offending product. ''That's not even my real signature, which is weird, because mine is so easy to forge," he says calmly, leaning back in his chair. When it's suggested that someone might be making a fortune off his distinctive mug, he rebuffs the idea: ''I highly doubt that."

Calm? Polite? Self-deprecating? Is this really the same man who has so convincingly played psychotic killers (in ''Reservoir Dogs," ''Con Air"), yappy wise guys (in ''Fargo"), and nerdy misfits (in . . . take your pick)?

Though his eyes still bulge and his pallor -- heightened today by a black hoodie and black pants ensemble -- remains the color of molding paste, in person, Buscemi projects none of the seedy insouciance or weirdness that have become synonymous with his on-screen persona. If anything, the soft-spoken 48-year-old comes across as low-key and patient, traits that befit a maturing director of television and independent film and are readily on display in ''Lonesome Jim," which opened Friday.

Like his critically praised and semi-autobiographical debut feature ''Trees Lounge" (1996), ''Jim" is the story of a rudderless protagonist (Casey Affleck) seeking a welcoming haven. Having struck out professionally in New York, his self-absorbed wannabe writer moves back home to Indiana to live with his overprotective mother (Mary Kay Place), indifferent father (Seymour Cassel), and depressed brother (Kevin Corrigan). Forced to fill in for his sidelined sibling at his parent's factory, he mopes about town until he's slowly coaxed out of his melancholic shell by a single mom (Liv Tyler).

''I thought it really captured something about the Midwest that rang true to me," Buscemi says of his attraction to writer James C. Strouse's debut screenplay. ''Although I'm not from the Midwest, I've been visiting Ohio for the past 20 years because my wife [the artist Jo Andres] is from there, and this hit home for me; the characters seemed subtle and real."

To maintain the authenticity and tone of Strouse's work (and to keep costs down), Buscemi decided to film on location in Goshen, Ind., the author's hometown.

''It was like shooting a home movie because we literally shot in Jim's parents' house," he says of the 18-day production. ''The movie's factory is their factory, and the two girls Sarah and Rachel on the basketball team [who play Corrigan's daughters] are Jim's real nieces, Sarah and Rachel."

Also adding to the homey on-set atmosphere was the tight-knit cast and crew. Given Buscemi's noted preference for working with friends and confidantes (Mark Boone Jr., who plays Jim's pot-addled Uncle ''Evil" Stacy, is a theater pal dating back to 1983; cinematographer Phil Parmet first met Buscemi on the set of Alexandre Rockwell's ''In the Soup" in 1992), the film's call sheet reads like a housewarming invitation.

''For me, that's part of what it's all about, getting to work with people that you like and who are talented and you know will deliver something akin to the way you see things," says Buscemi, who notes that his prolific work habits help expand his Rolodex. Additionally, ''I also depend on them to bring me their ideas."

''On a certain level, Steve primarily uses people he knows he can rely on," says Place, whom the director hired on the recommendation of his wife. ''Because he's an actor, and a good actor, he knows if the people he's casting can do the part, and he just allows them to do their work."

Not even the star power of his ''Armageddon" costar Tyler and mutual friend Affleck could ensure the film against the fickleness of Hollywood, however. After his first studio deal fell through in 2004, Buscemi salvaged the project by hooking up with InDigEnt, a production company that specializes in low-budget digital filmmaking, and agreeing to make the film ''for a lot less money and lot less days."

''For a film that came together that fast, it's taking quite a while to come out," says Buscemi, who admits the three-year process has been frustrating at times. But he has nothing but love for the medium that kick-started his career.

No stranger to long waits, Buscemi grew up in a large, close-knit Irish-Italian family in Valley Stream, Long Island. A self-described jock in high school, the varsity soccer player and wrestler (''I have a lot of strength for my size") increasingly found himself drawn to theater. And when he wasn't immediately placed after taking the civil service exam for the fire department, he enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in Manhattan, his tuition covered by a $6,000 settlement he received from the city after being hit by a bus at age 4.

By the time Little Italy's Engine Company 55 finally came calling in 1980, Buscemi had moved to a dingy East Village sublet on Avenue A and begun a short-lived career as a stand-up comic. He was also hanging out at Red Bar, a local watering hole favored by struggling actors, performance artists, and independent filmmakers, and found a kindred spirit in Boone, who was a bartender there. A physically disparate duo, the pair began putting on existential skit shows that were seen by the likes of art house regulars Jim Jarmusch, Tom DiCillo, and Rockwell.

After quitting his fire-fighting gig to act full time (though he'd don his gear again in the week following the 9/11 attacks), Buscemi landed his first major role -- as a rock singer dying of AIDS in Bill Sherwood's low budget indie ''Parting Glances" (1986). A steady stream of character roles followed, but it wasn't until Quentin Tarantino cast the ''criminal-looking" actor as the tipping-averse assassin Mr. Pink in ''Reservoir Dogs" that Hollywood took notice. More character roles followed -- now for directors with prestige (the Coen Brothers) and deep pockets (Michael Bay).

By the mid-'90s, however, Buscemi grew sick of playing what he calls ''sleazy psycho roles," and wrote ''Trees Lounge," a meditation on how his life might have turned out had he not left Long Island. Originally only intending to star, he ended up shooting the film as well. Nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards, the movie led to his directing the 2000 prison drama ''Animal Factory," starring old theater pal Willem Dafoe, as well as episodes of ''Homicide" and ''Oz" on television. In 2002, his snowy ''Pine Barrens" episode of ''The Sopranos" was even nominated for an Emmy. Season five of the HBO series brought more directing spots, as well as a role as James Gandolfini's newly sprung cousin Tony Blundetto.

Blundetto didn't make it out alive, but Buscemi may return to direct an episode or two of the final season -- if he has time. The actor is also trying to get ''Interview," a remake of Theo Van Gogh's film about a political reporter reduced to interviewing a soap star (Sienna Miller), off the ground. ''We were in preproduction, and then we lost the money, and then we thought we had another company, but they pulled out, so we're a bit in limbo. Now we're scheduled to shoot in April."

Acting-wise, he's as prolific as ever. This year, Buscemi has an uncredited cameo as a brash coffee shop owner in ''Art School Confidential" for ''Ghost World" director Terry Zwigoff, and brief roles in ''Paris, je t'aime," a film of 20 love stories debuting at the Cannes Film Festival in May, and ''Romance & Cigarettes," a musical costarring Gandolfini. Buscemi's distinctively nasal voice can also be heard in the animated films ''Monster House," out this summer, and as Templeton the Rat in December's ''Charlotte's Web."

Buscemi is also set to headline ''We're the Millers," a comedy by ''Wedding Crashers" screenwriters Steve Faber and Bob Fisher, in which he plays . . . a kooky outcast and marijuana dealer. Guess some things are just too good to change.