[IMG:L]Entourage’s scrappy street-smart manager reveals who in the cast’s got golf game, becoming Benny Goodman and why E will never, ever work in a pizza restaurant again.
Hollywood.com: Your cast bonded and traveled around together a lot when the show first broke big. Do you and the guys still all hang out off set?
Kevin Connolly: The thing is, right after the show, after we finish shooting, everybody sort of wants to take off…Kevin Dillon is married, he’s got a baby, he lives in Malibu. Adrian [Grenier] goes back to New York, goes on tour with his band. Everybody’s kind of scattered, but we get together for golf and that kind of thing a few times.
HW: Who’s the best golfer in the bunch?
KC: Kevin Dillon.
HW: Are you saying that with some personal regret?
KC: Well, he also likes to talk about how he’s the best as well. He likes to remind everybody…He’s really good but that’s what he does, I mean he does it a lot and he’s older [Laughs]. He’s a good golfer and Jerry [Ferrara] has come a long way too. But those guys are into it right now. We’re playing golf with Wayne Gretzky next week…he’s just taking us out at his club.
HW: Are you a big hockey fan?
KC: I’m a huge hockey fan so, I have to go out and practice. I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of Wayne Gretzky.
HW: Which guest stars would you love to work with?
KC: Well that’s tricky because we’ve had such great ones. I mean even the list of directors that we’ve had has been amazing. It’s like, M. Night [Shyamalan], James Cameron, I mean the list just goes on and on. I’m a big Clive Owen fan. I don’t think Entourage is probably his thing, but you never know. Well that’s why people ask me who my favorite guest star is and its Gary Busey is always my favorite. James Woods is great, I actually did a movie with James Woods in 2000, John Q. I kind of knew Woods a little bit before he came onto the show.
HW: And what’s going to happen with E and Emmanuelle Chriqui’s character Sloan?
KC: Well she’s going to be a big movie star now. She got the lead in the Adam Sandler movie…it’s going to be a little more complicated than last season so we’ll see.
[IMG:R]HW: What about next season, have you heard anything?
KC: Nobody, including Doug [Ellin] himself, has [any] idea. He’s in Cabo trying to figure it out, I guess, what he’s going to do. It’s a tough thing because you have to figure it out as an arc. Its not just like, ‘Hey let’s do an episode about this.’ You can’t do that because if it doesn’t fit, especially when the season is so small. It has to fit into the whole arc of the season.
HW: Have you had an experience or heard a great story that you brought into the producers and said “You’re not going to believe this…?”
KC: Yes I have [Laughs]. We try to work those in. The time to do that is now for the next season. See, what happens is, you don’t just during the season say, “Hey, crazy thing happened last night…” because this whole season has been mapped out already.
HW: When you started the show did you ever hear the stories from Mark Wahlberg’s past and think this could never happen?
KC: Well you know what it is, Doug always said most of the stories that happen on Entourage are sort of old wives’ tales. It’s like stories that you sort of heard, and half of its true and half of its not. Stories always seem to get better with age. So really it’s a lot of stuff that are sort of stories that you always heard about. But like I said, the best thing for a story is time.
HW: Does Mark participate anymore?
KC: Mark did what he was supposed to do. He sold the show, he pitched it. He sold it. He put the whole team together and then he let’s the machine operate. Him coming around everyday wouldn’t help anybody. He’s a smart guy. He did it the way that people should do it. That’s why he’s sold a bunch of other shows since then.
HW: If you had a choice, where would you see Eric in the future?
KC: I’d like to see him end up in the studio system. It’d be great to see E like running a studio…I’m done with the pizza business. That’s it.
HW: Do you guys have carte blanche all over town whenever you walk into a club, store or restaurant in real life? Because your show is probably more popular in LA than anywhere.
KC: Well what’s funny is in the first season we would have to, you know, go “Hey, do you know anybody that works over at so and so?” But now it does such great things for people’s businesses that they’re begging. They’ll shut down for us.
[IMG:L]HW: Now that you’ve wrapped for the season what do you have planned?
KC: I’m going to do a movie, I’m acting in it. I’m playing Benny Goodman in a movie…It’s the story of him and Gene Krupa…Brandon Routh, Superman [is playing Gene]. …It’s about the first interracial band in the thirties. With Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton and you know these guys came and they just blew them away…[They are played by] Nick Cannon and Ludacris.
HW: Can Brandon really play drums?
KC: I hope so [Laughs]. Hopefully he plays drums better than I play the clarinet…The good thing about the clarinet is you only have to look like you know how to play…I still have to learn how to dance and they’ll be playing the music in the background.
