''Park Bench with Steve Buscemi'' was an American web series talk show created, directed and hosted by actor

Steve Buscemi Steven Vincent Buscemi (,As stated in interviews by Buscemi himself. It is not uncommon for people to pronounce his name or instead. ; born December 13, 1957) is an American actor. He is known for his work as an acclaimed character actor. Mul ...

, distributed by digital network

AOL AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. The service traces its history to an online ...

. The series premiered on May 15, 2014. In each episode, Buscemi interviews a famous friend, former co-worker or everyday person in New York City.

Production

The show was conceived when Buscemi met Gino Orlando, his sidekick on the series, while directing promotional shorts for

Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend are an American Rock music, rock band formed in New York City in 2006 and currently signed to Columbia Records. The band was formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Ezra Koenig, multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij, drummer Chr ...

. "When we saw the footage," Buscemi said, "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.'" His brother Michael Buscemi appears as a rival talk show host. Each season was shot digitally in five days, in interior and exterior locations. The titular bench is a prop brought to each filming location, including the

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Julian Schnabel Julian Schnabel (born October 26, 1951) is an American painter and filmmaker. In the 1980s, he received international attention for his "plate paintings"—with broken ceramic plates set onto large-scale paintings. Since the 1990s, he has been a ...

's home and various bars and restaurants in the New York area.

Awards

In September 2016, the series won the

Primetime Emmy Award The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Owned and operated by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the P ...

for Outstanding Short Form Variety Series. The win was Buscemi's first out of eight Emmy nominations. The series had been nominated for Outstanding Short-Format Nonfiction Program in 2014.

Episodes

Season 1 (2014)

Season 2 (2015)

References

External links

* * {{EmmyAward Short-format Variety Series American comedy web series 2014 web series debuts 2015 web series endings Web talk shows American non-fiction web series