Few fail to recognize the peppered stubble of an after-morning shave on his Jewish face; overhang eyebrows cast deep shadows on his sunken eyes; heavy iron-like hooking eyebrows reinforce his cutthroat pretentious facade; his lips stretch from dimple to dimple like a tense slingshot, seemingly ever ready to fire profanity laden retorts.
Audiences assume Jeremy Piven to be a jerk – after all, he plays infamous Ari Gold in “Entourage,” who favors the tailored subtle pinstriped Armani suit and a rambunctious wont-take-shit-from-anyone philosophy, and his new manipulative car salesman character, Don Ready, in the lowbrow comedy “The Goods: Live Hard. Sell Hard,” opening on August 14, doesn’t help to mitigate the pretenses of his off-the-set persona.
But you’ll be surprised (and a bit disappointed) to know that the Ari Gold we love and the Don Ready we will come to love is merely an ingenious subterfuge – a product of the Piven Theater.
Few of you may have watched Jeremy Piven travel naked – an expos? of the unscripted Jeremy Piven – throughout India in the Travel Channel special, “Jeremy Piven’s Journey of a Lifetime.”
“It was me traveling through India. And people ask me ‘Well who was that character you were playing while you were traveling?’ And I said, ‘Oh no, that’s me,'” Piven calmly clarifies when asked about being typecast as a fast talking salesmen.
Having defended his off-screen reputation one too many times you’d think he was embittered. Rather, his tone is an air of relief.
“The thing that’s so interesting is that I kind of have to whip myself up into a frenzy to play characters like Ari Gold. And so it’s unbelievably fulfilling and completely exhausting,” Piven said.
Jeremy Piven is a master of his craft, able to style an image that tactfully appears to embody the actor. He’s the pigeonholed mimicry of Anthony Hopkins (“Hannibal”) – masters of their genres. At the mention of Anthony Hopkins, an immobile Hannibal Lecter bound by straightjacket and canine facemask haunts your immediate memory. Yet Hopkins has played gentler, kinder (although dramatic) and suspenseful characters in “Hearts in Atlantis” and “All the King’s Men.”
Likewise, the mention of Piven immediately recalls YouTube worthy moments of Lloyd-bashing and cunning tirades in the presence his fifth psychologist. But, the audience’s assumptions about an actor’s personality are a testament to Piven’s convincing performance.
“So as an actor, as someone who’s been on stage since I was eight years old, what we do is we play these different energies in these different characters. So I kind of relish anyone that will kind of have this notion of me as only having that gear… at the same time it’s not my only gear,” Piven attests.
He fesses that he may not have been Jeremy Piven without his parent’s support and their successful Piven Theatre in his hometown of Evanston, IL – notable alumni include John and Joan Cusack and Lili Taylor.
“If it wasn’t for the Piven Theatre, I would definitely have a hairnet on and I’d be selling curly fries somewhere in Schaumberg. Not even Evanston.” Piven said. “So it completely shaped my artistic life.”
If you’ve been paying attention, you’d wonder why Jeremy Piven would reprise another Ari Gold-esque role despite being aware of his hard-assed reputation among fans. After a quick peek of the teaser trailer, in comparison, Don and Ari appear rather alike – Don Ready the car salesman, convincing a flight attendant that smoking on a plane is an American right (despite the obvious safety violations) screams Ari Gold’s specialty: manipulation. Both embrace an inextinguishable workaholic fire that fuels their boisterous persona.
“Don Ready is a hard-selling, hard living character for sure,” Piven admits.
But he quickly dismissed the parallel between the lowly car salesman and the hotshot Hollywood agent.
“The character in Entourage that I play is so reactive. And in this character of Don Ready in the Goods, he’s someone that is – you might think he’s like Ari Gold and he is a salesman, but he’s having a complete life crisis… He has an arc in this movie that is nowhere near Ari Gold. Ari Gold would never do and walk through the life changes that Don Ready goes through… I mean we open on [Don] having breakfast in a strip club.”
Ultimately, Piven is a working actor who, up to this point, knows the ins and outs of building an infallible reputation (and resume).
“I read the script and the last time I laughed this hard at a script was a movie I did called ‘Old School.’ And I just – it’s one of these moments where I knew immediately that I just kind of had to do it,” Piven explained. “The writing was so incredible. Adam McKay is responsible for ‘Talladega’ and ‘Step Brothers’ and ‘Anchorman,’ and he’s just such a comedic force.”
And note that the flick boasts comedic all-stars with the likes of Ed Helms (“The Hangover”), Will Ferrel (“Stepbrothers”), Dr. Ken (“The Hangover”), David Koechner (“Anchorman”) and Craig Robinson (“Knocked Up”).
So it’s easy to see why Piven is confident in the lowbrow romp, “The Goods: Live Hard. Sell Hard.”
“I really tried to screen the movie for people who weren’t in the business,” Piven reveled. “A friend of mine who’s a surfer, like a pro surfer, brought his girlfriend, and he said there’s so many classic lines he can’t wait to see it again because he really wants to memorize a lot of them. And that’s when you know you’ve got something that’s kind of fresh.”
But my efforts to convince you about the off-screen Piven are futile. Piven’s knack for his craft is so fine that after watching “The Goods: Live Hard. Sell Hard.” you’ll forget about everything I’ve said and continue to believe him to be a manipulative and chauvinistic jerk yet you can’t help but love.
