In the late 2000s, every single boy I knew was obsessed with Entourage. HBO’s hit show about four friends trying to make it in Hollywood was every man-child’s fantasy: fast cars, impossibly beautiful women, and a world where acting like an asshole only ever paid off.
So how does Entourage hold up in 2020?
“It certainly did define an era,” Adrian Grenier, who played Entourage‘s Vinnie Chase, told PEDESTRIAN.TV from Melbourne, where he’s filming the Aussie production of Netflix’s series Clickbait.
“It was a reflection of a culture. I guess historians in the future are going to look at this show as an archaeological reflection of who were we were in the moment.”
If it’s been a hot minute, let me remind you: Entourage followed Vinnie (Grenier), a rising star whose constant crew included manager E (Kevin Connolly), his half-brother and far less successful actor Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon), and Turtle (Jerry Ferrara), whose main goals in life seemed to be getting high every second of the day, and hooking up with Vinnie’s cast-offs.
Season one was a success. Season two and beyond were critically acclaimed. The 2015 movie was panned, in part because by that time, audiences had decided seeing four grown men treat women like playing cards and only ever failing up wasn’t worth bothering with.
“Well we were coming out of the 90s, it was a very prosperous time, a lot of indulgence, a lot of financial prosperity,” Grenier said.
“Right now we’re in a time of reflection, and introspection. I think [Entourage] was the last hurrah that needed a reckoning.
“Certainly the fantasy elements on Entourage, being in the clouds, having a lifestyle without consequence, was appropriate for the moment, right before we had to come down to earth and realise that our behaviours and our actions actually do affect the world and ourselves and each other.”
Grenier calls Entourage a “fantasy world”, one that we all secretly (or not-so-secretly) enjoyed.
“It definitely touched on escapism and indulgence,” he said.
“It’s a shadow self, but at the same time, I don’t think you can look at anything two dimensionally.
“The show is also about loyalty and friendship, it’s about surviving that lifestyle. There were some really strong, powerful female characters as well, but one thing I will say is that those female characters did survive and thrive in that culture because they took on a lot of the destructive, toxic masculine traits that the show and the industry would reward.”
So how would Entourage look if it was still going in 2020? There’d be no ‘Harvey Weingard’ for one, and the episode where Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) shoots up an agency with a paintball gun to exact revenge would probably end with a SWAT team called in and Gold being cancelled on Twitter.
It might also reflect a slightly – and I do mean slightly – less toxic Hollywood, one where homophobic jokes don’t fly and women aren’t one dimensional.
“I think there have been massive changes, not just in the industry but society-wide,” Grenier said, “but I don’t think we’re done with this transition, culturally.”
Seasons 1–6 of Entourage, plus the Entourage Movie, are now streaming on Binge.
