Jeremy Piven’s character gets a soul in final season of ‘Entourage’
BY CINDY PEARLMAN July 18, 2011 5:44PM
Jeremy Piven (left, with Rex Lee) as Ari Gold in the final season of “Entourage” on HBO.
Updated: July 19, 2011 2:10AM
It’s time to hug it out for the last time.
But Hollywood agent Ari Gold might go out with a whimper instead of a screaming fit.
“You’ll have to find a new word for ‘soft’ to describe where Ari goes this season. I finally got to show Ari Gold’s soul,” previews actor Jeremy Piven, 45, who ends his successful eight-season run as Ari beginning Sunday on HBO.
The Evanston Township High School grad says that Ari reaches epiphany status this season.
When we last left him, his wife (Perrey Reeves) had dumped her tantrum-prone other half.
“In the eighth season, I finally get to reveal Ari Gold’s humanity,” says Piven from his Los Angeles home. “My God, I’m really able and allowed to show other sides of this guy.
“He is brought to his knees by the possible loss of his family. As an actor, you can only dream about playing emotional stuff like this in a final season.
“How often do you even get to play a character who can take all the oxygen in the room for himself? Ari is an equal opportunity offender. He’s a maniac. A rage-a-holic. But this last season, we finally open him up and show his layers.”
As the final episodes pick up, Vince is just out of rehab for a coke problem and has an idea for a new script.
“Without sounding too hokey, this is a season of change,” Piven says. “Some of these guys are men-children. The theme of this season is that at a certain point in life, everybody grows up.”
Fans are filling up Facebook pages demanding to know why the series has to end. Can’t these guys grow up in a slower fashion?
Although he’s sad about that fact that the show has wrapped, Piven is ready to put Ari on a shelf — at least for now.
“No matter how great a show is, it has to end. I think ‘Sex and the City’ went about seven seasons. We did eight, which is an amazing run,” Piven says.
What about an “Entourage” film?
“It feels like the kind of show that would benefit from opening it up on the big screen,” says Piven, who’ll be in theaters with “Spy Kids 4” next month. “This show begs to be expansive. The idea of having an ‘Entourage’ movie that takes place across the globe and is seen around the globe just feels great to me.”
Piven grew up in Evanston as the son of the late Byrne Piven, who along with his wife, Joyce Piven, founded the now legendary Piven Theatre Workshop, which produced Hollywood talents like Jeremy and his friends Joan and John Cusack.
“My dad was a rare bird like no other,” Piven says in a soft voice. “I do feel his energy around me, and it’s a nice feeling.
“In a way, I feel like I’ve been directed by him my whole life,” he says. “As I get older, I feel an even stronger connection to him.
“When I act out really emotional scenes like this new season of ‘Entourage,’ I feel especially close to my father, because that’s what he loved to watch.”
Piven laughs when you mention how he nearly turned down the role that would win him three Emmys. “In the pilot episode of ‘Entourage,’ Ari Gold has one scene,” Piven says. “He was just this fringe guy. The agent. Some guy named Ari.”
His pal Mark Wahlberg, executive producer of “Entourage,” had to talk him into taking the job.
“I called him up and said, ‘Jeremy, there is no choice. This role will really make you.’ ” Wahlberg recalls. “And I guess I was completely right.”
One wonders if everyone will hug it out in the finale in September.
“Oh, you’ll get an homage to the past at the end,” Piven says, fretting about giving too much away. “And the line is, ‘Let’s hug it out, bitch.’ Let’s just say there was some hugging.”
Now, there will be some adjusting — and constant reminding people that he’s not Ari Gold.
“The complete irony is that people think I am Ari,” he says. “No one knows who I am. Listen, I’m just a stage actor from Chicago. I’m an emotional guy. I’m not this character. I’m even shy. I don’t run around screaming at people.
“But to play a guy who is the exact opposite of me was a feast.”
Big Picture News Inc.
Comments Click here to view or make a comment