Is There a Type of Role Piven’s Still Interested in Tackling? “There’s a million different roles that I want to tackle,” admitted Piven. “There’s so many different ones. The guy that I just explored with Keeping Up With the Steins, he’s in a way the antihero. But he’s an emotionally accessible everyman. Ultimately he is what he is. I hadn’t been allowed to go near those guys and I did and I loved it. It was great.
The thing is we all have so many different tones within our spirit, so to touch upon all of those would be really, really fun. To play these tragically flawed characters that are revealed to be human is exciting to me and a challenge that I’m honored to jump into. Because it would be very easy to write Ari Gold off. So the fact that people don’t - and are interested - makes me feel great.”
The success of Entourage didn’t lead to Piven being cast in Keeping Up With the Steins. “We shot this before things kind of started really escalating for Entourage. I do have more choices now than I ever had in my whole life. That’s for sure. There are lead roles that are available to me. And to be able to bounce off and play off of females’ energy and explore relationships and all that stuff is so exciting to me. A lot of times I’m creating a lot of the energy and the madness that people are playing off of. Then they get to grab the girl and ride off into the sunset. I thought, ‘You know what? Because I’ve done all the rest of it, I can add all that energy and whatnot and round out and flesh out a guy that gets to either run off into the sunset or getting beamed into the sunset, whichever.’”
And Speaking of Entourage: Will this season focus on Ari’s new agency? Piven said it probably will. “Actually, we’re exploring it right now which is really great. I’ll tell you who’s back - who’s genius - is Beverly D’Angelo who plays Barbara Miller. She’s amazing and she’s in it, man.”
What else can we expect this season? Piven said his agency will sign on a few new clients. “There’s some turn of events that you will not believe on that front, which are really great,” said Piven. “But I will say this guy will rise like the Phoenix. It’s not what you expect this season from him, that’s for sure, which is so fun and great to play.”
The Reaction of Agents: Piven’s real life agents aren’t disturbed by Piven’s portrayal of their profession. “No, not at all. In fact, if anything, they’re so sweet about it. They’re complimentary about it. One of my agents shows me his super secret special tie knots that I use. …He taught me this special knot which makes it really fat. It’s an authentic agent knot so little things like that make me believe that I’m a good actor. If I can get specific like that and the way that they deal with each call or clients or big picture stuff or deals and blah blah blah, all that helps me.”
