Vincent Chase
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| Entourage character | |
| Vincent "Vince" Chase | |
|---|---|
| Hometown: | Queens, New York |
| Age: | 29 to 30 |
| Known Relatives: | Rita Chase (mother) Johnny Drama (half-brother) |
| Profession: | Actor (Head On, Queens Boulevard, Aquaman, Medellín, Silo) |
| Significant Other: | Besides a brief relationship with Mandy Moore, and another with former agent Amanda, Vince sticks to a string of one night stands. |
| Played by: | Adrian Grenier |
| Key Episode: | Entourage (Pilot) |
Vincent "Vince" Chase is the fictional main character played by Adrian Grenier on the dramedy television series Entourage. Entourage Executive Producer Mark Wahlberg named the character after legendary acting teacher Vincent Chase, whom Wahlberg became friends with while working on the 1997 film, "Traveller".
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[edit] Personal life
Vince grew up in Queens, New York, one of six children in the Chase family. Vince's father was a drug addict, and his absence in the episode "Aquamom" suggests that he is dead or estranged from the family. Vince's older brother, Johnny "Drama" Chase, is also an actor and has been living in Hollywood for at least twelve years, but with considerably less success. His personal life has been an area of great speculation as he has claimed to have slept with over 1,000 women, and has reportedly had several homosexual relations.
Throughout the series, Vince talks about how he and his entourage are "living the life" after growing up with little money, at one point saying that "I came from nothing, and as much as I like the toys, I can live without them" when told that offers for him are drying up. He is eager to share the financial and social spoils of his current stardom with them, who he thinks of as his family. While at first glance it seems that his friends are just leeches, they prove to be the ones he can depend on through thick and thin. Vince's disdain for money may be why he has only done four movies in five years, as he seems to be against working more than three months a year.
[edit] Career
Vincent Chase is a young Hollywood movie star described as potentially the best young actor of his generation. His breakout role was as the lead in the film Head On, co-starring Jessica Alba. After Head On, he was offered a role in the action film Matterhorn, but he passed. Instead, he chose to star in the independent film Queens Boulevard, based on the advice of his manager and best friend "E". The film is about a man presumably running from the law in Queens, New York, and was directed by egotistical filmmaker Billy Walsh. Queens Boulevard (or Q.B.) was submitted to the Sundance Film Festival upon completion, where it was well received, even winning the Grand Jury Award that year.
After the success of Q.B., Vince was offered the title role in the film Aquaman, which was to be directed by the master of big budget films, James Cameron. The movie became a massive success, making $116 million in ticket sales on its opening weekend, breaking the record set by Spider-Man.
After the success of Aquaman, Vince was offered the role of Pablo Escobar in the bio-pic Medellín, a film that he discovered and wanted to do before Aquaman, and which was set to be directed by Crash director Paul Haggis. But conflict arose when a sequel to Aquaman was greenlit with the same start date as Medellín. Medellín was the film Vince wanted to do, and he did attempt to work out a deal to do both movies at once. However, the head of Warner Bros. reneged on an earlier promise to allow Vince to do Medellín. Vince stuck to his principles, and was subsequently replaced by Jake Gyllenhaal for the Aquaman sequel. During his trouble getting out of his Aquaman contract, Vince found out that he had already lost his role in Medellín to Benicio del Toro, leaving him jobless.
"E" next found a new project for Vince in a film entitled I Wanna Be Sedated, a biopic about punk-rocker Joey Ramone and his band The Ramones. But after turmoil with the film's producer Bob Ryan and with Vince's agent Ari Gold, the project was sold to Warner Bros., which refused to offer Vince another film for the rest of his career. This led to Vince firing Ari Gold.
His new agent Amanda found him a new project entitled The Glimpses of the Moon, an adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel, to be directed by Sam Mendes. But Vince soon found out it might still be possible to get Medellín from his former agent Ari. In hopes of getting his dream project, Vince consequently began procrastinating on Glimpses.
After officially receiving an offer for Medellín at the very last minute, complications arose during the negotiations, which were taking place during the holiday of Yom Kippur. The film was dumped by the producer as a result. Feeling Amanda had let him down through this, Vince re-hired Ari Gold as his agent. Vince then ended up buying the script for Medellín, but only after selling his home. Once the script was purchased, negotiations were held with film producer Nick "Nicky" Rubenstein, to finance the project for $30 million. Vince turned to Billy Walsh as the director for the film. (At the time, Walsh was directing pornographic films under the alias "Wally Balls".)
After the Medellín project was completed, Walsh submitted it to the Cannes Film Festival, where it was accepted. Someone then leaked a trailer of Medellín onto YouTube, and people began to rave over the film. Hype began to build so greatly that Vince and Walsh were offered the film adaption of the novel Lost in the Clouds.
Preproduction on the film Lost in the Clouds began, with Vince slated to star and Walsh to write/direct. But when Walsh wasn't able to adapt the novel, he began work on a script called Silo, a post-apocalypse film set in the year 2075. After Ari somehow managed to sell the studio on the new project, Lost in the Clouds was dumped and pre-production on Silo began. In the meantime, while Walsh was busy writing the script for Silo, Vincent gained an office in his manager's management group, known as The Murphy Group.
When the Cannes Film Festival finally came around, hype for Medellín had grown so large that, upon arrival, Vince and Walsh were receiving multi-million-dollar offers for the film before it even premiered. The highest bidder was Yair Marx, who offered $75 million. Once the movie was finally screened, however, the reception in the theatre was overwhelmingly negative. Marx withdrew his offer, but Harvey Weinguard oferred to buy it for one dollar. Opting to look at what little bright side there was to things, Ari told Vince, "You should have seen Shakespeare in Love before Harvey got his hands on it."
Vincent and the boys, along with Billy Walsh, will be making Silo during the break between seasons 4 and 5. Most likely, we will see a premiere of it in the first few episodes, or the premiere of Medellín fixed in theatres around the world.
[edit] Inspiration
The character is named after the Hollywood acting coach who worked with Mark Wahlberg on (and appears in) the Bill Paxton feature Traveller. However, the character of Vincent Chase is loosely based on Mark Wahlberg himself. Wahlberg is an executive producer for Entourage and has achieved Hollywood success similar to the fictional success of Vincent. Vince's friend/personal assistant, Turtle, is based on Wahlberg's friend and former personal assistant Donny "Donkey" Carroll. Like Turtle, who moved to California from New York, NY's inner city (Queens, NY) with Vince, Donny followed Mark Wahlberg from Boston's inner city (Dorchester, MA)[1].
[edit] Fictional filmography
| 2004 | Head On | N/A | Co-starred with Jessica Alba |
| 2005 | Queens Boulevard | N/A | Won the Grand Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival (fictional). The first film Vince did with director Billy Walsh. Vince and Billy later blocked the film's national release, due to a major change made from the original cut that they were unhappy with. |
| 2005 | Chinese Energy Drink Commercial (Television Commercial) | Un-named role | Vince was paid $500,000 for this commercial, never to be seen in the US. Directed by (fictional) Chinese film maker Chaing Chung. |
| 2006 | Aquaman | Aquaman/Arthur Curry | Broke the opening weekend records set by Spider-Man, earning $116 million upon opening. Co-starred with Mandy Moore and James Woods. Directed by James Cameron |
| 2007 | Medellín | Pablo Escobar | A movie chased down by Vince and his best friend/manager, Eric Murphy. This movie is the true story of Pablo Escobar's rise and fall. Directed by Billy Walsh. Premiered at Cannes Film Festival to a negative response. Bought by Harvey Weingard's studio for $1. |
| 2008 | Silo | N/A | Announced. Set in 2075 in Nova Scotia, written and directed by Billy Walsh. |
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Vincent Chase Official MySpace
- Vincent Chase Official HBO web page
- Entourage Official HBO web page
- Entourage Official MySpace
- Medellín Official web page
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