 |
|
||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
 Entourage's Rex Lee talks about standing up to Ari and his former career as a real-life assistant. HBO So what were you doing a year or so ago, before your audition for Entourage?
At the time, I had a job as an assistant for a casting director. Without knowing it, I had been doing five years of research for the role. I worked for some casting directors who were, shall we say, tense. HBO How did you respond to the 'tense ones' in real life? LEE I was very Lloyd-like, which is to say I was very patient and I put up with a lot. But every now and then, when they were unreasonable, I would tell them, F**k you, you're being unreasonable. HBO How did you first hear about the role of Lloyd? LEE A friend of mine was working in the mail room at a management company, and he would occasionally check the notices. They usually send the breakouts - the list of roles to be cast - to agents and managers first. This one called for "gay Asian male, age 22-30, to play a subservient assistant." HBO Did working on the casting side give you special insights into the auditioning process? LEE I was mostly an assistant, and you learn to appreciate how difficult it is to be a director. You watch 20 actors do the same scene. You also appreciate how there doesn't have to be one way of doing it - it's possible to make a choice that's unique and organic. Over the years, I've taken acting classes in L.A. where the instructors will tell the students they have to make a choice. But actors can make odd choices that aren't organic, just for the sake of making a choice. If the scene calls for an overriding emotion - say, sadness - they might laugh just to stand out. They'll try and be unique for the sake of being unique. But it turns you off. I also did a lot of work for commercial casting directors, where the decisions can be completely arbitrary. 'We don't want her cause she reminds me of the girl who rejected me in the first grade.' It freed me up to go into auditions, do the best I could, and not take it personally. HBO Did your job as an assistant help you play one? LEE As an actor, you have to say to yourself, why haven't I left this scene? Most good scenes have a little conflict in them. It's very helpful in playing Lloyd, because I have to ask, why do I have this job? Why don't I get another job? I always try to be very clear in my head why I'm putting up with Ari. HBO So why is Lloyd taking it?
I think in the last two episodes of last season, you learn a lot more about Lloyd. The speech he gives Ari in the car after he leaves the agency - you learn a lot about Lloyd's ambition. He's not just taking all the abuse to be a doormat; this is all in service to a long-range goal. He's there to be at the foot of the master. There is an end game. HBO You were actually a 'master' once - you had a job as a casting director. LEE Oh, that was a short a friend wrote and directed. I did that for a miniscule amount of money. I thought, it's a small project, I'm gonna try it. Seemed like a sort of controlled situation. It wasn't gonna get out of hand. It was a lot of work, but it was just an experiment - I knew I was I trying to be an actor. Over the years, people have always asked me if I enjoyed casting work. And yeah, if God came down and said, 'You can't be an actor,' I'd enjoy being a casting director. HBO So you've been an actor, a casting director and an assistant for some 'tense' Hollywood types. But it seems like few things in life could really prepare you for going up against a maniacal Ari Gold. LEE I don't think of my work relationship with Jeremy as adversarial at all - I think of it as a dream. If you show up on set and you're not prepared to play with him, you're gonna get steamrolled. Once I figured that out, it was, 'Okay then.' I was prepared. I can be a fighter. Jeremy likes to improvise and go off script - he doesn't censor his impulses. I just sort of go, whatever you give me, I'm going to be prepared. I do sort of have this attitude, 'You are not gonna get the best of me.' HBO Do you ever get the urge, after one of his Ari tirades, to go off script and say 'F**k you, I quit, mother-f**ker!' LEE No, I don't really have the impulse to go off on him. I do think Lloyd is evolving - I have a specific idea of who he is and what he would do. He's very ambitious, but he's also very patient. Part of the way his ambition manifests itself is, he sits back and watches. He's sort of always scheming to see how he can move forward in his plan, regardless of what's going on around him. Telling off Ari is not part of the plan - Ari is my ticket to success. HBO Does Jeremy ever do things that are very un-Ari like? LEE Jeremy definitely has that guy in him, but I don't think he is that guy. I recognize when the cameras aren't rolling, he's not Ari.
What about you - has the role affected your life in L.A.? LEE I don't think of myself as an actor who stays in character, but there have been times when the cameras stopped rolling - especially last season - and I'd realize parts of Lloyd were rubbing off on me. I was a nice sanitized version of myself. I would never, ever rock the boat. They'd say 'We're not gonna shoot your scene after all, you can go home.' And I'd say, 'Great. Thank you.' HBO Do you ever feel offended by some of the comments Ari makes? LEE I've read some of the message boards, where a few viewers don't like the things Ari says to Lloyd. But as a nonwhite person, I feel alright with what's going on. The character of Ari is just sort of offensive to everyone - he insults everyone he can. So I don't get insulted when he says things about Asians. His whole character is very un-PC. HBO Do you have any special wishes for Lloyd - something you'd like to see happen to him? LEE Just general wishes... I'd like to see the character go somewhere. If that means that Lloyd becomes an agent, great. If Ari totally squashes on that dream, maybe that could be an interesting thing to play as an actor. |
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||
|
HBO INFO JOBS AT HBO CONTACT US TAKE CONTROL SITE INDEX SCHEDULE PDF REGISTER/SIGN IN | |
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
> Privacy Policy > Terms of Use | |
|
||
|
© Home Box Office, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This website is intended for viewing solely in the United States. This website may contain adult content. |
|
|
|
|
