An Interview With ARI! (Jeremy Piven)

Anyone who hasn’t seen Entourage (HBO)…YOU’RE ON NOTICE! Yea you!

Look, if you want to keep rolling your eyes, that’s fine…I know there’s a War on HBO in America today. Whether or not the liberal media ever decides to get off their gay lover long enough to cover it, you can count on the interns, photocopiers and laser printers here at ‘deadissue’ to give it to you straight.

Ari is an agent. Aside from that…he’s a goddamned comedic genius, and would be a shoe-in for the next four Best Supporting Actor in a Sitcom/Comedy Emmys if the world wasn’t such a piece of shit liberal cespool. They give James Spader a SECOND Emmy over Al Swearengen (Ian McShane-Deadwood), and it’s obvious right away that these rich, elete, far-left liberal, George Soros funded radicals were just going to give the award to the gay nominee the entire time.

OK, I’ve got to get back to reviewing my archive of Rush Limbaugh shows from 1996. I’ve been working for two years to prove once and for all, that Howard Stern has been stealing Rush’s ideas since the day he showed up on the scene. Rush’s drug addiction was a direct result of his genius having been stolen and exploited in such an ungodly way. One day he confided in me…

“dead – it’s easy going in and once there are a few hundred milligrams at play, I’m finally able to reconcile my feelings of perplexity and shame about all of this. Stern stole my act! And I sometimes feel like I should just call him out on it…but Christ intervenes you see, I remember that thing about tossing the first stone…mari…mama…hrmmmn’

(Mr. Limbaugh ‘nods out’ for a stretch and the deadissue crew gets bored, starts poking around a bit. They found a box full of wigs in the closet and I told them to cut the shit and act like professionals. Next they found a box of video tapes with the lables scratched off, and some packages of adult diapers. Laughter broke out, Rush suddenly began to gurgle and sway.)

“Hey big guy! Whoa, you were saying some great things about how, the uh….war and…” (Rush nods again and falls out of his chair) “…OK he’s done. Hey everyone! Stop screwing around and listen up. You need to round up all the OC you can find. Let’s sprinkle the pills around his head and take some photos. Gary, go get that 9mm out of the trunk. Might as well get a set of prints on it while we’re here. Yo-Turn it off! You stupid? We want all this on tape don’t we?” (tape ends – the interview with Ari (Piven) aired later on that week, without mention of the ongoing scandal)

Jeremy Piven Interview:

HBO
What do you think it is that makes Ari so irresistible for fans?

Jeremy
You know, it’s funny, I’ve never been one to talk my way into getting a role, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to articulate well why this character is watchable. I just like doin’ it, man. For me, the high is just doing it and letting you see it.

HBO
What about from your perspective — what is it about the role that appeals to you?

Jeremy
Unfortunately, I’ve been around this energy for many years in this town, you know. I’ve come face to face with this energy many times, so I know it in my bones. Maybe that’s why I have an inkling of how to make this guy live.

HBO
Still there’s something weirdly likeable about him.

Jeremy
Well, that’s the beauty of people, you know, the complexity of each person. Even the most angelic person you ever would meet has to have some tragic flaw, no?

That’s why I think everyone is interesting in their own way, they really are. I mean, why is it that if you watch a hidden camera, people are still fascinating?

HBO
You live full time in L.A.?

Jeremy
I live in L.A. and Chicago.

HBO
So you haven’t really taken up the L.A. lifestyle yourself?

Jeremy
No, I never was that guy.

HBO
Is there anything about the Entourage-style Hollywood life you find attractive?

Jeremy
I think what’s attractive is Mark Wahlberg’s loyalty, you know? It has a real sense of un-Hollywood to me; the people are very straight to each other. They’ll call each other out. Whereas in this town, I think people are very leery of other people, of confrontation, of other people speaking the truth to them.

In Mark’s crew, people are going off on each other left and right; there’s a lot of history there, and there’s family. I think that kind of connection, the authenticity, translates into our show. Whatever Ari say or how abrasive he is, he wants Vinnie’s career to explode.

HBO
Vinnie says he could walk away any time…

Jeremy
I think the lack of desperation is why people gravitate toward someone like Vinnie Chase. Because once that desperation takes over, it takes away your strength and power. Vince just doesn’t have that need to be there. There’s a very authentic air of strength.

HBO
So can you be an actor working in Hollywood and not get sucked in?

Jeremy
I think you can choose any life you want. I think that’s kind of what you learn as you get older. You don’t have to give in to any one particular lifestyle. If going out and being in the Hollywood scene makes you unhappy, you don’t have to do it. You can be an artist and do your own thing and have your friends and not be a part of that. Or you can run in it, have a good a time, see it for what it is – get in and get out.

HBO
Do you feel you’ve been able to do that?

Jeremy
I feel like it. I really do. I mean, I made myself a promise not to come out here unless I had a job. I was on the stage in Chicago and I was brought out here to do some series TV and then I would go back and immediately do a play. Then when I’d get the call, I’d head back out there. I stayed in Chicago until the moment I had to be out here year round.

I’d do nine months on a series and three doing movies; I crammed thirty-five movies into those hiatuses. I’ve been working without stopping for a while. So, you know, I’m not immersed in that scene – I’ve been lucky enough to be busy.

HBO
You’ve said that you consider yourself a stage actor. What do you see as the differences in the two worlds?

Jeremy
In front of the camera, it’s a very precise science. You have to hold in your energy and somehow make it appropriate, and you’re shooting out of sequence, so you have to husband your energy throughout the day and explode at the right times.

On stage you have the entire house. You’re sitting and breathing the same air. You’re being seen from head to toe and you get a running start on the piece. They’re quite different beasts.

HBO
Just before filming season two, you starred in Neil LaBute’s ‘Fat Pig.’ Did you find it difficult to pull yourself off that stage?

Jeremy
You know it wasn’t. I needed to get out of it, because is was so unbelievably emotionally draining. I was breaking up with a very heavy woman on the beach every night. And, you know, weeping like a bitch. You try breaking up with someone eight shows a week. They had to f**king peel me off that stage. I couldn’t do a year of that show.

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