Rob Weiss

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Rob Weiss is an American film and television screenwriter. His break came in 1993 when he wrote and directed the 1993 film Amongst Friends. The film was well received at film festivals and scored Weiss a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

Weiss is now currently best known for writing for the HBO comedy series Entourage after being convinced by Doug Ellin, the show’s creator, who went to high school with Mr. Weiss at Baldwin High School, where Weiss graduated in 1985, and described him as “an extremely funny, slightly crazy, good-looking nutjob.”. He wrote (or co-wrote) some of the more popular episodes of the series including Aquamansion, The Bat Mitzvah and The Sundance Kids.

In an Aug. 2007 New York Observer interview with Mr. Ellin, he confirms that Weiss was the basis for the character of Billy Walsh (played by Rhys Coiro), a perfectionist filmmaker who is a recurring character on the series.

Mr. Ellin even asked Mr. Weiss if he’d play “Walsh,” but Mr. Weiss declined. Instead, the role went to the Vincent Gallo-esque Rhys Coiro, to whom Mr. Weiss bears little outward resemblance after the role was first offered to temperamental french director, Xavier Vacher.

He has attended both film and design school and worked as a promoter on Long Island, in New York.^[1]

Weiss was engaged to Shannen Doherty ("met in 1994; announced engagement December 1995; reportedly separated April 1996")^[2] around the time she was filming the movie Mallrats, and was claimed by the film's director, Kevin Smith, to be a disruptive long distance presence. Smith has theorized that this may be the reason for two separate jabs at him on Entourage, coming in the second and third seasons respectively.^[3]