Steve Buscemi Leaves Aura, London, 2005
St James's, London · 28 and 29 October 2005
I am Charles Pycraft, a London photographer. In the early hours after the night of Friday 28 October 2005, my cameras recorded Steve Buscemi leaving Aura, the nightclub in St James's. The four frames here were taken over five minutes, from 03:37. This piece keeps to what the files show and what was reported at the time.
This week Steve Buscemi is back on UK cinema screens in Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine, from Searchlight Pictures. Set in 1973, it follows a group of CIA agents sent to Easter Island in the shadow of the coup in Chile, with John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Buscemi plays MJ, the CIA bureau chief, and Malkovich won Best Actor at Venice for his part.
The pavement
The frames show him in a dark jacket over a grey striped shirt, walking out onto the street under the St James's street lights. In two he looks straight at the lens, in one his eyes are closed mid-blink, and in the last he is caught mid-stride as he walks on. No entourage, no fuss.
Who he was in 2005
By 2005 Steve Buscemi was one of the most recognisable character actors in the world: Mr Pink in Reservoir Dogs, Carl in Fargo, Donny in The Big Lebowski, Seymour in Ghost World and the voice of Randall in Monsters, Inc. In 2004 he had joined The Sopranos as Tony Blundetto, having already directed one of the show's best-loved episodes, Pine Barrens. He was also a director in his own right, and his film Lonesome Jim, with Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler, was in the programme of The Times bfi London Film Festival, which was running in the West End that fortnight. The files do not say where he had been that evening.
What was going on that week
The London Film Festival ran from 19 October to 3 November 2005. In the singles chart, Arctic Monkeys' debut single, I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor, was number one for the week ending 29 October, the morning these frames were taken. At the cinema Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was number one for a third weekend, with Saw II and The Legend of Zorro opening behind it.
Where he is now
Five years after these pictures he became Nucky Thompson in HBO's Boardwalk Empire, which won him a Golden Globe, and a whole new generation knows him from his 30 Rock line "How do you do, fellow kids?". In 2025 he joined Netflix's Wednesday as Barry Dort, the new principal of Nevermore Academy. And now there is MJ in Wild Horse Nine. My photography years ran from 1999 to 2014, and that archive is now licensed through Backgrid UK.
The pictures
Four frames from outside Aura, St James's, in the early hours of 29 October 2005. Credit: Charlie Pycraft / BACKGRID. Licensing: Backgrid UK Sales, backgrid_uksales@shutterstock.com
