“Is this for print?” Jeremy Piven asks as the Zoom call commences. He’s up early for a day of interviews. Assured that the interview will be published as text, not a video, he takes off his cap momentarily, revealing a glimpse at a crown of cowlicks. “Okay, so the visuals don’t matter on this at all,” he says. No, and if they did, I would be in far worse shape than he is.
“I haven’t had my coffee,” Piven goes on to say, “and forgive me: I’m a slow starter, and I’m not good in the morning. I’m not interesting, and I’m grumpy, so I’m just having a moment where, in about four seconds, I am going to have some incredible personality.” True to his word, mere moments later, he blossoms into a bon vivant, his enthusiasm driving the conversation well past our allotted time.
Many probably know Piven as the well-groomed, well-dressed, and yet abrasive Ari Gold from HBO’s Entourage, where he was part of a comedic ensemble for eight seasons (2004-2011) followed by a feature film in 2015. After Entourage, Piven starred in the title role in the British historical drama Mr. Selfridge, an ITV production aired on PBS’ Masterpiece, about the real-life department store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge.
But TV is hardly Piven’s only medium. He’s racked up more than 100 credits at IMDb, many of them on the silver screen. Nor are his talents confined to comedy: Piven has undertaken compelling dramatic roles, from the Holocaust drama The Performer to Primitive War, an adventure film that has not yet been released and is already generating considerable buzz for its Vietnam war-set story of elite soldiers wandering into a remote patch of jungle where dinosaurs still roam. It sounds like a hilarious B-movie, but the high-concept material is handled seriously, and the film is drawing comparisons to the “Jurassic Park” franchise.
Still, comedy is Piven’s go-to, and while his decade-long career in standup may somehow have been overlooked in many quarters, his creds, here too, are impressive. Piven is currently on tour with his new standup comedy show, following an international itinerary that has seen him bring his act to Auckland, NZ; Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth, among other stops in Australia; Winnipeg (and, soon, Vancouver) Canada; and, as of Sept. 19, he’ll be landing in Boston for a one-night-only show at Wilbur Theater. From there, he will head to California, Florida, and Texas for a schedule of shows that will take him into 2026.
But we don’t speculate on the future in this informal-feeling chat. We begin with Piven’s past. Born in Manhattan and raised in Evanston, Illinois, he hails from a family of theater people. Piven has said on previous occasions that his mother was his first acting coach, starting in childhood, and his standup shows have included a bit about him running lines from “Entourage” with her, only to be flummoxed at her unblinking embrace of even the most raucous material. Perhaps he needn’t have been surprised; how else would lifelong entertainers have responded to a script for “Entourage” except with, to borrow a phrase, consummate professionalism? Half a century into his own career as an entertainer, Piven can claim that industry boast for himself.
“I got up on stage at eight years old, with my family,” he recalls. “I was doing it before I really knew what it was, or had a reference for what I was doing, and it was very fun.
“Because I’ve been on stage my whole life, and it wasn’t introduced as something that was a means to an end, it came to me very organically,” he adds. “By the time I got out of school, it was just a part of me. I started a theater company, and there was never any thought of doing something else, ever.”
Our chat continues from there, Piven wandering about his house, phone in hand, dipping in and out of frame, and yet in his element: A storyteller connecting with his audience.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Theater Mirror: Did your standup career grow directly out of being a performer of whatever kind — on film, on stage?
Jeremy Piven: We were always doing some form of comedy on stage, and so that was nurtured and came about naturally. Standup comedy is an extension of everything I do. When people come to see my show — it’s very interesting, because this is me talking about myself as a standup, so it feels very awkward and it seems pointless, but I’m gonna forge ahead — they say that they had no idea I was so funny. Which is the most incredible compliment to me; that after years of film and TV and doing comedies, that whatever I bring to the stage exceeds their expectations is pretty incredible to me, because that’s basically just me taking all the skill sets that I have and crafting together insights into what I think are funny stories. I do an hour set where people get a sense of what I think is funny, and we all have a great time together. I just think that there’s no better way to interact with people
Theater Mirror: After being in shows like Mr. Selfridge and Entourage, where you worked with ensembles, is it much lonelier to do standup, where you’re developing your material pretty much on your own?
Jeremy Piven: Yes. When you’re filming, you’re on a set with a group of people, and it’s a collaborative effort, and when you’re doing standup — I don’t know, it’s interesting, because you have the entire audience that you’re having a conversation with. Even though you know it is a monologue, it is a dialogue. That’s the way it feels to me. Selfishly, I love it because you have immediate gratification from the audience.
Theater Mirror: You’ve been traveling internationally with your show, and now you’re coming to Boston’s Wilbur Theater. To what extent are audiences in various cities and countries different from each other? Or is laughter such a universal experience that there’s no difference?
Jeremy Piven: No, there’s a very big difference. I get to travel across the country and the world and get a sense of each town and how they are as an audience — who’s really present and gets the jokes, what towns are more judgmental. If they feel that you’re not on the same team politically, they may shut down, which I think is sad. My mother used to have a rule: “You can say whatever you want, as long as it’s funny.” I’ve been saying lately, “You’ve got to go where you’re loved.” I feel really loved in Australia, and I don’t even know why that is… there’s so much love for me over there. And they embrace humor. It’s really a part of their culture. If you make them laugh, then it means a lot to them. They’re smart, and they’re present as an audience. I feel like with Boston, it’s very similar — they’re very vocal in Boston, and they like to bat it back and forth. I’ve been to the Wilbur before. It’s a beautiful theater. They’re a great audience, and I love playing there.
Theater Mirror: You mentioned politics a second ago. Is comedy better for you as a reflection of the world? Or should it be a refuge from the world?
Jeremy Piven: If I’m concerned with how my insights are going to be received, then that takes away from the work. If I’m trying to think about comforting people or giving them refuge from the madness, that’s a great thought, and you can explore and heighten that. But if I’m second-guessing myself, it’s not going to be that interesting, as opposed to just being a bit fearless and throwing it out there. A lot of people spend a bunch of energy trying to be seen in a certain light, and when people are obsessed with performative gestures, to me, it’s very interesting because, like Shakespeare says, “the lady doth protest too much.” What is it that you’re obsessed about in terms of being seen in a certain light? You know what I mean?
I grew up in a family that was incredibly liberal, and they knew intrinsically that there was not an even playing field, so they would hire people of color in their plays. They integrated casts of whatever they were doing at the time. They were doing “King Lear,” Chekhov, whatever [with integrated casts] — not to be seen in a certain light, or so they could tick some boxes, or any of that. They did it because it was the right thing. That’s how I grew up, and I saw that they didn’t draw any attention to it. And now we’re living in times where people really want to let you know how empathetic they are. I’m just a real big “Show me, don’t tell me” guy. The people that are talking a big game about how decent they are, how they’re for the everyman, they’re going to identify an oppressor and they’re going to put all their energy into bringing down that oppressor every day — well, okay, you know what’s really going on here. These are all themes to explore on stage.
Jeremy Piven plays The Wilbur Theater Sept. 19. For more tour date information and more about Jeremy Piven, go to https://www.jeremy-piven.com/ . For more about The Wilbur, go to https://thewilbur.com/ .
