The Cultivated Narcissism of Hollywood | Adrian Grenier

God bless actors! I don't always get along with them. I think for those reasons, you know, when I... it feels like it's about them and what they want, and they're the instrument. Well, they're the stars, you know? It kind of goes along with the territory. I mean, people in media, people in politics, people in entertainment, they tilt towards narcissism. And I'm not saying that in an insulting way. I mean, every personality constellation has associated vices, you know? If you're going to want to be on camera, if you're going to want to be around people, that's one of the things that tilts you in the direction of it sort of being about you.

And if you're a charismatic personality and you're an actor, you're going to attract people around you who facilitate that development, let's say. It's part and parcel of the territory. But you're not really temperamentally like that? Oh, I cultivated my narcissism. Okay, yeah, yeah. No, I definitely found that part within me that was the character of Vince. You know, they say actors get lost in their characters, right? Yeah, and I did.

And how long did "Entourage" run? Ten years, right? Right, yeah, so that's a very major chunk of time. Oh yeah, yeah. Well, so walk me through that. So you got your plane ticket, you went out to LA—what happened then?

I got the part. When my manager found out that I got the part, he walked into the room and I had no place to stay and I had no car. So I'm in his office checking my email again, and he walks in. He was the first person to call me Vince. He's like, "Vince," and I knew I got the part. I hung my head because I knew that it was going to totally change my life in ways that I didn't know if I really wanted. I knew that I was going to have to commit to this because he used to tell me, "It's like you don't even know what you don't know. You're going to have access, women, and money, all these things," because he was managing other famous people, so he understood.

He said, "You don't even know; you want it, but when you get it, you'll know you want it. You'll know it's great." It was going to change my life, and because it's a commitment. When you audition for something like that, you have to sign a six-year contract. Right, so you're already committed before they even give you the role, and it did— it changed my life entirely. I had to learn to be that celebrity, or my own version, my own expression of that celebrity.

Then with the success of the show and the popularity of the characters, people would come up to me and you know—instant approval. Instant! You walk into a room and you get that attention, that just acceptance. Had that happened to you at all before? I mean, you'd had some success as an actor before that, but not like that. Oh, totally different, yeah. I mean, you were about 28 when this happened? 28, 27, 28. Okay, so you're not a kid when this happened.

So that's something! All right, so now you have, what? You said instant accessibility, instant approval? Right. Tell me about the character that you played and how that tangled up into that.

Yeah, so Vince is a celebrity who's you know, very nonchalant. The whole theme is, "If this doesn't work out—if all the fame and fortune doesn't work out, I can always move back to Queens," so it was like perfect. Talk about typecast, right? I mean all the characters have—that's very strange. We're all New York kids and, you know, we were all very well-cast. I think that's partly they were writing the character to reflect me. Oh yeah, okay.

And partly that was the character that was because that's fun, trying to distinguish your actual life from your role. It was more fun to blur the lines, because you start to acquiesce to people's wanting you to be the character. "Oh, do shots with us!" Right? Like, "Yeah, okay, I'll do some shots with these guys," and I like people, so...

Yeah, and then, you know, there are the pitfalls and the women and, you know, I started to believe that that was the way it's supposed to be. Right, you mean supposed to be meaning that success? Yeah! Vince gets all the girls and the money and the power and the fame, and that was appropriate and good. As his star rose, my star rose, and it just became easier and easier to say yes to the indulgences, and I got really good at it, whereas before I was leery of it.

Yeah, you know, you allow yourself to enjoy it. You know, it very easily becomes easy to say yes, especially when it's justified. "Well, you're the celebrity; of course!" You know, you get the accolades—you must know a little bit about that yourself. Sleep is a foundation for our mental and physical health. In other words, you've got to have a consistent nighttime routine to function at your best. But if you're struggling with sleep, then you've got to check out Beam.

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Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to shopbeam.com/peterson and use code "peterson" at checkout. That's shopbeam.com/peterson and use code "peterson" for up to 40% off! I mean, this all happened to me when I was pretty old. Oh right! I mean, I was laboring under some degree of obscurity till I was about 50, you know? 53, 54? So, you know, I was already fairly cemented into place by the time I... That's right! Yeah, right, right.

And you know, I have a very tight family and a very tight network of friends, and so that's also made a substantial difference to me. I don't know what it would have been like to have encountered that sort of thing when I was much younger. I mean, I probably would have been wild, especially if I would have done it before I quit drinking. So I quit drinking when I was about 25, 26; something like that, you know? And that straightens out your life pretty radically.

But I was pretty wild, you know, when I was drinking. Right, so you know, growing up in New York, there's a little bit of nihilism—Godless, you know—and this was now the overlay of my—I don't know how to describe it—my ego, which was, “See? You know, I am the man! I got the part, and people are approving of me.”

Yeah, so it just... well, it's a very difficult thing. I mean, I don't know exactly how it is that you can resist. Part of being socialized is to pay attention to what others think of you, right? I mean, that's part of being in the loop for accepting social feedback. Normally, you know, you're not carried around on the shoulders of others constantly, but you found yourself in that situation essentially.

It's like—it isn't obvious to me how people can withstand that. I've talked to Russell Brand a little bit about that because he was spectacularly successful and also, you know, what would you say?—in the market for whatever repetitive urges might make themselves manifest. So, you know, he's talked to me a little bit about that and he paid, to I would say a relatively heavy price for that. He and I might have been friends if we weren't competing for the same chicks. Aha! Did you know him in LA?

We crossed paths a few times. Uh-huh. All right, so now you're in LA, and now this is very interesting. You resisted this. And now you were spending your primary amount of time in LA when "Entourage" was six to eight months a year? And then I go back to New York?

And by the way, you didn't have a house in LA? I had a house, but that I stayed in when I was there. Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. I kept my New York address, and I got mail there, and my bills there—so, pay taxes there. So, funny enough, like, I actually made a documentary. So, I simultaneously, while I'm on this ride and I'm finding more and more excuses to indulge and enjoy the lifestyle, I was maintaining a sense of my goodness by doing environmental work and starting charities, making documentaries.

And I still had a band the whole time. In fact, the band really got popular after that, even though we might not have deserved it otherwise. So, I still had my other life, which kept me feeling like I was not swept up in that thing. Right, right. But not really recognizing how much I really was, you know, captured.

Okay, so then, why not be captured? Like, I mean, you were successful, you got the part, the part was successful, the series was successful, and you have these things that are laid at your feet, so what's the problem with indulging?