Actor Steve Buscemi is undeniably one of the greatest character actors the world has ever had the pleasure of knowing. The Hollywood stalwart, once described with inexplicable accuracy by the Guardian as 'a strangely attractive shoelace', has forged a highly-successful career off the back of playing weirdos, oddballs, eccentrics and gangsters - meaning he's no stranger to the bizarre or the unexpected.

But Buscemi also has an even more intesresting tale off-screen, having been a firefighter from 1980-1984.

What's more, the day after the attacks on the Twin Towers, he turned up at his old fire station ready for work. He spent the next week doing 12-hour shifts and helping his former colleagues search for the bodies of the missing. When people tried to get photos or interview him - he outright refused.

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Buscemi had worked as a New York City Fire Department (FDNY) firefighter with Engine 55 in Little Italy. He stayed in touch with some of his old fire company colleagues, even when he went on to be a Hollywood superstar. He understood how many firefighters were missing along with the rest of the innocent people who'd been affected by the terrorist attacks, and just wanted to help out.

Some time after, he broke his silence and said: "It was a privilege to be able to do it.

"It was great to connect with the firehouse I used to work with and with some of the guys I worked alongside. And it was enormously helpful for me because while I was working, I didn't really think about it as much, feel it as much.

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"It wasn't until I stopped that I really felt the full impact of what had happened. It would have been much harder for me to get through it if I hadn't been able to do that."

He has since made an HBO documentary in an attempt to encourage others to join the FDNY.

A Good Job also has a message to current firefighters - don't be afraid to ask for help after any trauma they may have suffered.

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