Adrian Grenier

Interview By: Rick Mele

RickMele@TheCinemaSource.com

It seems like you can’t go anywhere in New York these days without seeing Adrian Grenier. With the third season of the hit show Entourage already underway, and his new movie The Devil Wears Prada due out at the end of June, Grenier’s face can be found plastered on the side of buses and billboards all over the city. He sat down to talk with us about his new movie and his new philosophy.

A New York native himself, Grenier is no stranger to life in the city, and thinks that his experiences here helped him in his role as Nate, Anne Hathaway‘s love interest in The Devil Wears Prada: “I did have that sort of undercutting banter from my having grown up in New York, which I think is one thing that brings all of the cast together so nicely is that we all come from New York. We all understand that sort of insensitive tough love that is, to somebody in Minnesota, maybe an insult, you know, to us, it’s ‘I love you.’”

The Devil Wears Prada was hardly Adrian’s first time filming something in the city; he’s shot A Perfect Fit, Love in the Time of Money, and a couple of smaller roles in Woody Allen movies here as well, but it’s certainly the first time he’s come back to New York and been this recognizable.

“It hasn’t gotten too crazy. I mean, maybe I just haven’t really been around enough because I’ve been working so much that I don’t really notice. But I do get stopped a lot more than I did a year ago, just increasingly more and more as viewership increases. And we’ve done really well the past couple weekends, the first couple episodes of the third season, so I imagine as the popularity of the show grows, it will definitely become more frequent.”

In spite of all this newfound attention, Grenier still prefers shooting on location

in New York rather than the comforts of a sound stage, “You ask any actor, I’m sure they’ll tell you they’d rather shoot on location because you don’t have to invent the energy, the energy is there. Although it does have its difficulties, you know. It’s not a controlled environment so anything’s kind of up for grabs.”

“When we were shooting that scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Andy and Nate have an argument about going to Paris, we were actually shooting in the West Village and it was Halloween. So you had your own little fashion show going on with ghosts and goblins, and all sorts of Smurfs running around and [laughs] making noise. We were trying to be serious, and everyone else was having a big party. So it does have its challenges, but I would take those challenges over the challenges of trying to recreate energy any day.”

The same goes for filming Entourage, which is shot almost exclusively on location in Los Angeles. Grenier says, “We shoot on location in the actual places that we’re showing on the show. We go to the Lakers games, so there’s a real audience, Kobe’s really making that three-pointer. It really just adds a whole nother energy that you couldn’t really quantify, but it’s undeniable. It’s such a good time, you know, it really is.”

Between a hit TV show and a new movie, Grenier says it’s tough to find a balance between work and play, but he’s trying.

“My life has definitely changed; I’m definitely not as social as I once was. But I definitely find time to be social and have fun, which I think is a better balance. I think at a time, I partied too much, and hung out too much, and wasted too much time. And once you get into the habit of work, you can actually be more productive in the things you wanna do too.”

“So you can do the things that

you have to be doing for money, but at the same time, because you’re already in that habit, you can easily transition into doing the things you want to be doing, which is great.”

Partied too much? You probably wouldn’t expect such an answer from Vince on Entourage. So which character is closer to the real Adrian Grenier, Vince or Nate?

“I can find both of those characters in me somewhere, and it’s fun to play. With Vince, it’s more about playing, you know, having fun and allowing yourself to be a bit larger than life. And it’s nice to be able to slip into the Nate character, where it’s a sweeter, more sensitive side of myself, which I definitely have as well.”

“I’m not naturally macho, which is one thing about Vince that was a little difficult for me, to find that sort of machismo… But, you know, with Nate, it’s a different sort of sensitivity. It’s more sincere, not as sarcastic.”

And as for any fashion tips Adrian might have picked up from working on the set of The Devil Wears Prada, he says, “I’m learning. It doesn’t come natural to me, but I’ve grown to appreciate the aesthetics of a nice suit, the cut of a shirt.”

Now, that “nice suit” wouldn’t have anything to do with the Aquaman suit, would it?

“I don’t think you’ll ever see Vince in that ridiculous outfit [from the second season], but I think you’ll have to get ridiculous to a certain extent if you want to be a superhero.”