{"id":730717,"date":"2026-05-31T23:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T20:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/steve-buscemis-park-bench-was-doing-viral-talk-tv-before-viral-talk-tv-existed\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T23:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T20:05:12","slug":"steve-buscemis-park-bench-was-doing-viral-talk-tv-before-viral-talk-tv-existed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/steve-buscemis-park-bench-was-doing-viral-talk-tv-before-viral-talk-tv-existed\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Buscemi\u2019s \u2018Park Bench\u2019 Was Doing Viral Talk TV Before Viral Talk TV Existed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tA decade before Kareem Rahma clipped a microphone to a Metro card and started asking New Yorkers for their Subway Takes<\/em>, Steve Buscemi created an Emmy-winning talk show by chatting with folks on a park bench.<\/p>\n

\n\tBuscemi had come up with the idea after directing a series<\/a> of promotional shorts for the band Vampire Weekend, during which he met carpenter Geo Orlando. \u201cI pulled him into the scene, we went on a park bench and did a little scene with the singer Grimes,\u201d Buscemi told Time<\/em> in 2015. \u201cGeo was so natural and just a great sidekick, if you will, that I said to my producing partner and our producing team, \u2018I think I can build a whole show out of Geo and I on park benches.\u2019\u202f\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAOL Originals thought so too, and Park Bench With Steve Buscemi<\/em> 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 \u2014 Chris Rock, Rosanne Cash, Fred Armisen, GZA and Mayor Bill de Blasio \u2014 and non-famous, such as Buddhist nun Ani Trime Lhamo. Buscemi, who was working on the final season of Boardwalk Empire<\/em> 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe second season, Buscemi brought on guests including John Turturro, Debi Mazar, Paul Auster, then Public Advocate Letitia James and John Oliver. Park Bench<\/em> won outstanding short form variety series in 2016. Of the show\u2019s simple, informal app<\/a>roach, Buscemi told THR<\/em> at the time, \u201cI don\u2019t know that I\u2019m a great interviewer, but I do like to talk to people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":730718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/9f176800c8eeb9ac590ca5c6b458d419-H-2026.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[5519,22333,135025,61059],"class_list":["post-730717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-awards","tag-emmy-awards","tag-hollywood-flashback","tag-steve-buscemi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}