Entourage star Jeremy Piven chats candidly with Page Six Magazine about his award-winning role on the HBO show, working on Broadway, and searching for true love.
On the differences between him and his Entourage character Ari Gold: “I’m not Ari. But still, he’s a great character to play–he’s so reactive and living in the moment, but at the same time, he is driven by things that I think are beautiful, like putting food on the table. In life I wouldn’t have the patience for him, and I don’t think he would for me. I’m a stage actor making no money doing a f–cking play. He’d be like ‘Baby, baby. It’s always about the money baby.’ The irony there is pretty thick.”
On if he’s really a womanizer: “It just feels so played out. It’s not really me. In essence, I am a really boring stage actor from Chicago.”
On what it’s like to work on Broadway: “This show [Speed-the-Plow, where Piven plays Hollywood producer Bobby Gould] starts off like the [end] of a boxing round, when there are ten seconds left and you just have to give it all you’ve got. The great ones let their hands go–they let them fly–and they swing. This play feels like swinging from the time the curtain goes up.”
On why he returned to New York City: “I’ve been a moving target for the last two decades… Whenever I come back to New York I think, ‘Why don’t I live here again?’ That was the reason for me to take this play–so I could come here and find a place to live, and establish a solid foundation for myself. That’s what I really need right now.”
On why it’s taken him so long to find true love: “I think seeing my parents together and how they were such a team, it made me think that when you finally pick someone to be with, you do it for keeps… My six-year-old niece put it best when she was talking to my mother about my being single so long. ‘All in his own time, Nana,’ she said, ‘All in his own time.’”
For more on Jeremy Piven, check out PageSixMag.com. You can also see him on Broadway in the 20th anniversary revival of Speed-the-Plow, the David Mamet play satirizing the American movie business, opening October 23.
