Vincent Chase

Entourage character


name=Vincent 'Vince' Chase
home=Queens, New York
age=29 to 30
relatives=Rita Chase (mother) Johnny Drama (half-brother)
job=Actor ("Head On", "Queens Boulevard", "Aquaman", "Medellín", "Silo")
lovelife=Besides a brief relationship with Mandy Moore, and another with former agent Amanda, Vince sticks to a string of one night stands.
Manager=Eric Murphy
Agent =Ari Gold
actor=Adrian Grenier
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".

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.

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.

Vince is 30 years old, his 30th birthday being the main storyline in the season 3 episode "Less Than 30".

Vince's grandfather is Japanese. Vince also has an Irish background.

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 offered 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 scissor-hands on it."

"Medellín" ends up going to direct to DVD, and is savagely reviewed by Richard Roeper. The failure also apparently lead to "Silo" being scrapped, and Vincent and Turtle decide to decompress in a tropical hideaway, surrounded by gorgeous women. After a few months pass, Ari is informed by producer Carl Ertz that he wants Vince for his next film, "Danger Beach". Eric informs Vince of the good news, but Vince is content to go out on "Medellín". Eric, Ari, and Drama have to fly to Mexico to get Vince to come back to L.A. for a meeting with Ertz. However, Ertz never really wanted Vince for the film to begin with. The meeting was just a ploy to get Emile Hirsch and his agent, Ari's rival Adam Davies, to do the film for less money. Despite the fact that the offer wasn't real Vince decides that he can't go out on a box office bomb, and needs to find a new hit film to regain his stardom.

After Vince discovers that there are no studios willing to offer him any leading roles, Eric discovers a good script for Vince from his newest clients, unknown writers Nick and L.B., called "Nine Brave Souls". It is about nine firefighters on the night before the biggest fire they've ever fought. Ari does not want Vince to do another independent film because his last indie, "Medellín", tanked. Figuring Vince was not going to star in Nick and L.B.'s film, he brought the script to Amanda. Amanda liked the script and sent it to her client Edward Norton, and he wanted to make the film, but with more action sequences. However, after Ari finally reads the script he wants Vince to do the movie. Vince and Ari try to sell the script, newly titled "Smoke Jumpers", to a producer with Vince playing the lead role. The producers wanted the script, but not with Vince in the leading role. After realizing he wasn't going to be cast as the lead, Vincent decides to play a supporting role. Ari is set to sell the script to producer Steve Parles for $500,000 with Vince cast as Ray in the second lead role.

Unfortunately for Vince, Edward Norton wants to buy the script along with Alan Gray, head of Warner Bros. Studios, for $1,000,000 and another $1,000,000 if the movie is made. Warner Brothers are still furious with Vincent for not signing on to do the "Aquaman" sequel, and opting to do "Medellín" instead. Vince loses his supporting role because Warner Bros. bought the film. Vince now has a difficult career move to make. He can hold out for a movie he likes, and risk going bankrupt, or he can do a new "Benji" film for $3,000,000. Thinking it will hurt his chances to regain his status as a movie star, Vince choses to forgo "Benji". Vince, Eric, and Ari decide they must find a way to get Vince back on "Smoke Jumpers".

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) [ [http://www.tvsquad.com/2005/12/21/inspiration-for-entourages-turtle-dies-of-asthma-attack/] , tvsquad.com] .

Fictional filmography

References

External links

* [http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=72487490 Vincent Chase Official MySpace]
* [http://www.hbo.com/entourage/cast/character/vince.html Vincent Chase Official HBO web page]
* [http://www.hbo.com/entourage Entourage Official HBO web page]
* [http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=64060893 Entourage Official MySpace]
* [http://www.medellinthefilm.com Medellín Official web page]
* [http://entourage.wikia.com/wiki/Vincent_Chase Vincent Chase] in "Entourage Wiki" at Wikia