The day after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Buscemi went to his old firehouse to volunteer for recovery work at Ground Zero. That week, he worked 12 hour shifts digging through the rubble, while refusing to do interviews or have his picture taken.[8]

However high-profile he has become, he's never quite got the fire department out of his head. And the day after 9/11 something strange happened. Buscemi found himself putting on his old gear and heading for the collapsed World Trade Center. He didn't quite know what he was going to do, it just felt right. "The first day I went on my own and walked around and got closer and closer to the site and found the guys I used to work with. You couldn't get on the pile where the buildings had collapsed without special permission. Any company that had lost guys had access to the pile. They were actually taking a break outside the pile, when I found them. You couldn't tell what anything was. It was such a bizarre, surreal experience. I told them that I would like to work with them, and they asked me if I had gloves. I said 'yeah'. But I didn't have gloves that morning - I had to go and buy them."

Buscemi spent five days with his old colleagues, cleaning the rubble, working the bucket lines. It had a massive impact on him, helping him through the tragedy of 9/11 but also forcing him to question his motives and reassess. "It was strange because I felt totally safe there, and I felt good being there. All I was doing was digging and putting rubble in buckets and passing it on, and then it got really weird whenever there was a body bag coming along, or helping to take a body bag to the makeshift morgue. I was grateful for the opportunity to be reconnected with these guys I used to work with."