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You probably want to know why. Of all the questions raised by the existence of the upcoming Entourage movie—does Ari yell? does Vinny do the fuckin' movie? does everyone get laid in the end?—the most pressing, most fundamental one is why it even exists in the first place. Why is this movie here? Who asked for it? After eight seasons on HBO, is there really anything more we need to know about Vinny (Adrian Grenier), E (Kevin Connolly), Drama (Kevin Dillon), Turtle (Jerry Ferrara), and Ari (Jeremy Piven)?
The first answer to all of these questions, of course, is Tough shit—THEY'RE DOIN' THE FUCKIN' MOVIE! Over near the water station, an assistant is rubbing bronzer on Piven's ankles. While the other guys are easy company in real life, Piven is so formal and serious that it almost feels like a put-on, as though he needs to be the precise opposite of Ari Gold so that people won't mistake him for the character. This results in a conversation about acting between Piven and me in which, despite my best efforts to ingratiate myself, everything I say winds up being hilariously wrong. Observe:
"One of the forms [of acting] that I did was commedia dell'arte," he tells me, "which is an Italian form where you're in one of four states—happiness, sadness, anger, or fear—at all times, and you're ramped up to a 10, you know?"
"Like, very melodramatic?" I ask.
"No," he says. "No disrespect, that's exactly what you're trying not to do."
"Ah! You can tell me I'm wrong. I think of melodramatic as hammy."
"If that's your take on what I do..."
Fuck. "No, no, not what you do," I say, frantically trying to recover. "I'm saying the Italian form you were talking about."
"The Italian form is a heightened emotion that has to be rooted in sincerity. I ran into Tim Robbins, the actor and director who taught me the commedia dell'arte form, and he just laughed, because he knows that that character"—Piven means Ari—"is played completely in the commedia dell'arte form.
Now, if I were to explain that to the average person who maybe likes Ari Gold, I don't know—I don't even know why I'm telling you, to be honest.".....
Dinnertime is almost up, but I manage to say a few more wrong things to Piven.
"If people mistake you for Ari in real life," I say to him, "it's a sign that you've done your job well!"
"I guess there is some sort of compliment in there," he replies. "I really wish I was evolved enough to get it."
Later on, I make a Mumford & Sons joke. "I'm sorry," he says, "but I actually really like Mumford & Sons, man."And then I spill my glass of water. Time to move on.
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SawceAlthough skinny Turtle could obviously get it, I'm sort of missing chubby Turtle
