The uninitiated might brush off HBO's hit comedy Entourage as a "guys' show" because of its male-dominated cast. But the program would never have made it to air if it hadn't been for a woman—specifically, the wife of creator Doug Ellin. "I only got [Entourage] because I wrote a spec script for Curb Your Enthusiasm," Ellin recalls. "And it was only because my wife got pregnant that I wrote that script. I was like, 'I've got to get into TV; I can't take the movie world, where I work on scripts for a year and nobody makes them.'" That spec script convinced longtime manager Stephen Levinson to pair Ellin with another client, actor Mark Wahlberg, who had been kicking around an idea for a TV show based on himself and his childhood friends. "Even though Steve has been my manager and friend for years, when he read this he said, 'You're the guy to write this thing,'" Ellin says with a laugh. "I was like, 'You've been watching me for 15 years, and I wasn't the guy yesterday?'"
Right now, Ellin is very much the guy. His scathing, hilarious indictment of the entertainment industry—particularly its stars and has-beens—is racking up water-cooler buzz and awards, including a recent Emmy win for Jeremy Piven's turn as fast-talking agent Ari Gold and a SAG Award nomination for outstanding ensemble. Not bad for a kid from Brooklyn who began his career in standup at age 21. "I wanted to be Woody Allen or Albert Brooks," Ellin says, adding that there was one small problem: "I didn't have any skills. But I thought I was funny. So I did the amateur nights for about a year or two; that's how I got started."
In 1991 he moved to Los Angeles and took a job in the mailroom at New Line Cinema. Following the mold of his idols Allen and Brooks, he decided to write and direct a short film he could star in. "I did a standup show to raise money for it and invited everyone from New Line," he says. "Mike De Luca, who was [vice president] at the time, came and gave me $5,000 out of his own pocket to do the short." A friend who was producing the movie worked at a management company and began asking its clients to be in the film. Soon, Ellin had David Schwimmer and Jonathan Silverman headlining his short.
Titled The Pitch, the movie had a simple concept: Characters pitched movie ideas to a producer. Ellin had a brief scare when he realized Robert Altman's The Player was coming out. "It was just people pitching ideas," he notes. "And I was like, 'Oh my God, everybody's going to think I stole this.' But as it turned out, it was perfect timing. Showtime bought my short and put it on before The Player."
Ellin also used The Pitch to get into the directing program at the American Film Institute and upon graduation decided to make "a longer short film," titled The Waiter. That 30-minute movie—also starring Schwimmer—caught the eye of producer Cleveland O'Neal III, who asked Ellin to rewrite and direct a low-budget comedy, starring rap star Coolio, called Phat Beach. "He said, 'I think you're perfect for this,' and I was like, 'Why am I perfect for this?'" Ellin recalls. "He was like, 'I don't know; I just see something in you.' Being 23, 24 years old and having no real directing experience, it was a good way to learn."
According to Ellin, Phat Beach was true guerrilla filmmaking. "We shot 10 days over a year on about $100,000, and everything happened," he says. "People were fired—I worked with probably seven or eight [directors of photography] in 10 days." When money ran out, a friend saw the footage and thought they could sell it. Live Video pitched in $200,000 to finish it, and the film was released on 400 screens. "I did the best I could, and I feel proud I delivered a movie that has made at least a few million dollars from modest, pathetic expectations," Ellin continues. "But even when I was doing it, I never expected it to be in a theatre."
He followed Phat Beach with the romantic comedy Kissing a Fool, starring Schwimmer and Jason Lee. Shot in 22 days for $1.8 million, the independent film was bought by Universal and released on 2,000-plus screens to capitalize on Schwimmer's Friends popularity. "I'm proud of that movie, but it didn't make any money in wide release," Ellin says.
Ellin admits that when Wahlberg and Levinson brought him the idea of Entourage, he wasn't sold. "I didn't totally understand it at first. I was like, 'How are you going to do a show about a rich guy and a bunch of guys who live off him?'" he recalls. "So I said, 'I need to make it my own kind of thing,' and we went from there. I wanted to make these guys family, more like brothers than friends. They grew up together."
He also knew he had to have the perfect cast. For up-and-coming movie star Vincent Chase, he didn't want a big name. "It was very tricky. When we started, we were looking for someone more like Mark, and we couldn't find that," Ellin says. "Steve convinced me to look in a different direction, and we looked at Adrian Grenier, who was a client of his." Grenier starred in the 1999 teen flick Drive Me Crazy and in the title role of the 1998 indie The Adventures of Sebastian Cole but was far from a household name. Still, the actor struck Ellin as a true movie star. "Adrian is so subtle, and he can get overlooked because people think he's playing himself and he's not," the writer says. "He's making extremely strong choices. Adrian is carrying himself in a way that there's only a handful of people, including Leo [DiCaprio], who can pull it off."
For Vincent's childhood friends Eric and Turtle, Ellin went with unknowns Kevin Connolly and Jerry Ferrara, who bring a sweet authenticity to their roles as underlings. For Vincent's stepbrother Johnny "Drama," a less-successful actor, Ellin was instantly taken with Kevin Dillon. That Dillon is brother to more-famous actor Matt Dillon in real life had nothing to do with his choice. "Kevin simply came in for an audition, and the first time he opened his mouth, it was over," Ellin says. "He's one of those guys that you go, 'I cannot believe this guy has not been a star forever.' He's as good as anybody."
But the character with the most quotable lines is Ari, played to perfection by Piven. Though Ari's behavior might be considered outrageous—he regularly insults the sexuality and ethnicity of his assistant, Lloyd (Rex Lee), and his recent underhanded dealings got him fired by his agency and then by Vincent—Ellin insists the agent is a good guy at heart. He says, "I get defensive when people say Vince is stupid or Ari is bad, because I work really hard to make them more than that."
Despite the outlandish plots, Ellin says, it's important to never sacrifice realism for a joke: "From the beginning, it was, 'This is going to be real before it's funny.' And hopefully, the realness of it will make it funny. In that respect, I was looking for something different than The Player—which I love and have seen 400 times—but that's a heightened, satirical world that we didn't want to be. We know we have to do it in 30 minutes and make it entertaining, but these things really happen."
Ellin suggests that actors who audition for the show bring realism to the table: "Like everything, we look for a realness—the simpler the better. We try to write the characters as strong as possible, and then, hopefully, people bring something real to it. We really try not to exaggerate anything."
Doug Ellin will appear on the panel "Entourage: Behind
the Scenes" with the cast and executive producer Stephen Levinson at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival on March 3, at 7 p.m., in the St. Regis Aspen Ballroom.