Adrian Grenier spent eight seasons as the handsome, agreeable centre of Entourage, a star written to have things happen to him, and he played that passivity so accurately that it is hard to say what else he can do. The evidence since is thin.
Fi1m perspective
Watch Vincent Chase take a meeting. Ari Gold shouts, Eric worries, Drama says something he will regret, and Vince sits back, smiles, and agrees to whatever was said last. Adrian Grenier played this man for eight seasons of Entourage (2004–2011) and again in the 2015 film, and the striking thing is how little he ever leaned forward. Doug Ellin wrote Vince as the still point the others circle, a film star who is famous because he is famous, and Grenier gave him exactly that: good looks, an easy laugh, and no visible appetite for anything.
It is hard to know whether that counts as acting. We said in our review that he played the part accurately, which is not the same as playing it well, and we stand by it. Jeremy Piven's Ari and Kevin Dillon's Johnny Drama got the jokes and the sadness; Kevin Connolly and Jerry Ferrara got the errands; Grenier got the car and the girl and very few lines that required a decision. By the later seasons we found ourselves quietly irritated by him, not because he was bad, but because the show kept handing Vince things and we kept waiting for him to want one. He never did, and Grenier never once suggested he might.
Before all that there was Drive Me Crazy (1999), a teen romantic comedy in which he had the lead, and during the run there was The Devil Wears Prada (2006), where he was Nate Cooper in support of Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. Both are parts for a decent-looking man the plot can happen around. It is a type he fills without effort, and effort is what he has rarely been asked to show. After Entourage the film offers thinned to Marauders (2016), Arsenal (2017) and a part in Clickbait (2021); the general view is that Vince followed him out of the door and would not leave, and we see no reason to argue with it.
The more interesting Grenier is behind the camera. He has directed documentaries since Shot in the Dark (2002), and Teenage Paparazzo (2010), about a young photographer working the celebrity beat, turns the question of fame round and looks at it properly, which is more than Entourage managed in eight years. He has called acting "a mask-wearing process", and it may simply be that he was never much interested in the mask.
A man written to have things happen to him has gone off to make things happen instead. On what we have seen, it suits him better.
Biography
Adrian Grenier is an American actor, director and musician. He was born on 10 July 1976 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and raised in New York City. He attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, and studied at Bard College before leaving to pursue a career in film.
Grenier is best known for portraying Vincent Chase in the HBO series Entourage (2004–2011). His film roles include Chase Hammond in Drive Me Crazy (1999), Nate in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), and a reprise of Vincent Chase in the 2015 Entourage film. He has also appeared in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Hart's War (2002) and Clickbait (2021). Grenier has directed documentaries including Shot in the Dark (2002) and Teenage Paparazzo (2010).
