Steve Buscemi joins the Far Cry TV series cast and now we’re all wondering: will he be a weird, helpful NPC, or a weirdly charismatic villain?
Have you ever thought to yourself, I bet Steve Buscemi would make a good Far Cry villain? I think he would. He’s charismatic, superficially good-natured, kind of odd looking, extremely high-strung, and prone to sudden, sometimes random outbursts of extreme violence. And I’m not the only one who thinks so—the people making the live-action Far Cry series for FX do, too.
Word of Buscemi’s big role was delivered by the official Far Cry account on X: “Welcome Steve Buscemi to the world of FX’s Far Cry. Hope you’re ready to get thrown into the deep end, lose your mind, and make a few catastrophically bad decisions along the way.”
There’s actually no indication as to what role Buscemi will be playing in the Far Cry show, good guy or bad. At first blush, the announcement might seem to be warning Buscemi of bad things to come during his time in the cast, but I think it’s also quite possible to read it as a warning to viewers of all the bad things he’s going to do to other people. “Lose your mind and make bad decisions,” that’s kind of his whole vibe, right?
Buscemi is too old to play Pagan Min or Vaas, and there’s obviously only one person who could fill the shoes of Antón Castillo. But he does have kind of a natural Joseph Seed vibe going on—I could definitely see Buscemi as a guy who psychologically breaks someone so completely that they never speak again and won’t go outside without a mask on.
Others on Team PCG feel differently. Chris Livingston thinks he’s going to be “a weird helpful NPC,” maybe like Hurk—Buscemi doesn’t really have a Hurk-like physical presence but I can definitely see him firing rockets at random passers-by from the back seat of a busted-up hatchback.
Wes Fenlon, on the other hand, thinks Buscemi will portray Jason Brody, the barely-out-of-his-teens hero of Far Cry 3. They’re de-aging actors for the upcoming Lord of the Rings flick The Hunt for Gollum, but even so I think this scenario is unlikely. I suspect it may even be possible that Wes isn’t being entirely serious here.
Issy van der Velde opined that Buscemi would “be a great villain” in Far Cry, which is correct, but then went on to imply that he doesn’t much care because Michael Mando was “phenomenal” as Vaas and all Issy really wants is to see Mando turn up somewhere.
The press release from FX isn’t any help, for the record: It says only that Buscemi has “built a career out of portraying some of the most unique and unforgettable characters” in movies and TV shows ranging from Reservoir Dogs and The Big Lebowski to Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos, and Wednesday. ‘Odd’ might be Buscemi’s signature move but the man has range, and he could fill either role with equal ease.
Here’s his big entrance as weird psycho killer Garland Greene in the 1997 Nicolas Cage classic Con Air:
And here’s his big moment as weird sidekick Buscemi (Robert Rodriguez isn’t really a details guy, I guess) in the 1995 Antonio Banderas classic Desperado:
(Yes, I have seen some of Buscemi’s more recent work, but I like what I like.)
The truth is that Buscemi almost certainly won’t play any of the characters we’ve encountered in the previous Far Cry games. Executive producer Noah Hawley said in April that he’s “not specifically adapting any of the games,” but will instead build the series around the broader concept of “civilized people thrown into situations where they have to become increasingly uncivilized,” and his own take on what a Far Cry story is. But even with that more open-ended approach to the series, if we take it as a hard-and-fast rule that bizarre, flamboyant characters are an essential part of the formula—and I do—then I reckon Buscemi will fit right in.
