Spoilers are ahead for Episode 13 of CBS' Elsbeth Season 3, called “Murder Six Across” and available streaming with a Paramount+ subscription.
Elsbeth is the place to be in primetime to find celebrities playing murderers who kill their victims in bizarrely funny ways, with Season 3 returning in the 2026 TV schedule to break a rule with Midnight Mass’s Hamish Linklater. The latest episode featured none other than Steve Buscemi himself as a crossword puzzle fanatic pushed to murder most foul over a “delulu” combination of frustration over slang and an unrequited crush on a fellow puzzler. Carrie Preston spoke with CinemaBlend about Buscemi requesting a role on her show, which had him “flailing around.”
Even if Elsbeth hadn’t been officially reclassified as a comedy on the awards circuit after a lot of what Carrie Preston described as “hard work,” Steve Buscemi playing Simon, an old-fashioned crossword puzzler who commits murder with a nylon drawstring backpack, would have been undeniably funny. Buscemi is also one of the biggest names to appear on Elsbeth as a murderer opposite Carrie Preston, and she revealed that the show didn’t have to reach out to try and recruit him:
Article continues belowI know Steve Buscemi is a fan of the show, and when he came on to do our show, he told me that he reached out to his agents and said, 'Hey, can I be on Elsbeth?' [laughs] And so they called Findley Davidson, our casting director, and asked, 'Do you have anything for Steve Buscemi?' And we were like, 'Of course we have something for Steve Buscemi! That's amazing!'
Considering that Steve Buscemi has a long history on the screen going way back before Wednesday Season 2 (and my earliest memory of him was seeing Con Air on cable in the '90s when I was probably too young to be watching Con Air), it’s hard to imagine that any show would just say no to a request by the actor for a role. According to Carrie Preston, it meant a lot to her that he was a big enough fan of her series to go that extra mile. She shared:
That was really moving to think that someone I've watched for my whole career, wanted to come and play with us and to be on the show. And his wife is a big fan, and they had watched every episode and were able to talk about it, and it was very flattering.
A celebrity coming on Elsbeth generally isn’t going to be playing one of the good guys, with the exception of Ethan Slater guest-starring as a cop while the Wicked buzz was still buzzing. So, Steve Buscemi getting a role on Elsbeth was likely going to mean killing somebody is a very outlandish way. Still, a murderer isn’t exactly a new kind of role for the Boardwalk Empire alum!
So, what was it like to actually work with Buscemi, when he came in both as a big name and an existing fan of the show? Carrie Preston only had good things to say about his performance in “Murder Six Across,” telling me:
He was so great. He came in so fully ready and prepared and focused, and was so kind and almost shy. You don't think about that with the characters that he plays. He's played some pretty evil people, and he could not be more opposite that. [laughs]
Well, one doesn’t become a star on the level of Steve Buscemi by giving co-stars an evil impression! Of course, he does have comedy credits to his name, ranging from films like The Big Lebowski and Fargo to TV projects like Miracle Workers and 30 Rock, the latter of which spawned the iconic “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme. Carrie Preston went on to share her experience watching him work alongside one of her frequent scene partners:
The script was beautifully written. And then I had the great joy of watching him deal with the pressure that Elsbeth puts on people. And it was like watching a fly get pinned to a wall, flailing around, and that was incredible to watch somebody of his skill level navigate that. Every take, he was just exquisite to watch. And Micaela Diamond, who plays Detective Edwards, she and I were like dying every time, going, 'I cannot believe that we're doing a scene with Steve Buscemi.'
Once upon a time, I might have said that I cannot believe a network TV show recruited Steve Buscemi for a one-off role like this, but that would have been before Elsbeth started pulling in major stars to play killers. Nathan Lane as the opera lover with a killer instinct about theatre etiquette has gone down as my favorite ever since the Season 2 premiere, but Buscemi as Simon Craigie the crossworld puzzler is now a contender for the #1 spot.
You can revisit all of Elsbeth’s celebrity killers with all three seasons so far streaming on Paramount+, and keep tuning in to CBS on Thursdays for new episodes. The hour-long comedy has already been renewed for Season 4, so fans can enjoy the rest of Season 3 without wondering if Elsbeth’s journey is ending.
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