Pity Poor Piven

You know how you can like an actor or actress, even though you don’t know them personally? Certain individuals have a weird charisma that makes you enjoy their work, or they exude some quality that you find appealing? Well, I’ve always liked Jeremy Piven -- until recently.

Piven spent much of his career playing schlubby everyman types, hence his appeal. He frequently appeared in movies that starred his buddy John Cusack. He was really good in Ellen. He even provides the voice of the Elongated Man in Cartoon Network’s Justice League. So far, so good. But in the past few weeks, he’s also been profiled in a few publications and the interviews he gives just scream “asshole.”

Frex, as the cover star of the March 2006 edition of the generally useless magazine Cargo, Piven offers his advice on fashion, grooming and suchlike, which is pretty amusing in and of itself, but he waxes so pretentiously that you can’t help but chuckle at the vapid self-absorption he displays.

Plus, he repeats himself, with “If you let them, clothes will dictate how you move through space and how you hold yourself” followed a few grafs later by “…for me, it’s really how she moves through space.”

Moving through space: what a perfectly asinine turn of phrase. I’d like to slap the dogshit out of the Rodeo Drive sales clerk who contributed it to Piven’s vocabulary. You get the impression Piven thinks it makes him sound knowledgeable and sophisticated, but it merely makes him sound like a pompous jackass.

Furthermore, in all the pictures that accompany his interview, he's doing something fruity with his hands. He looks like he's trying to appear natural -- you know, like he's moving through space -- but he just looks stiff.

Also, dig this cover blurb: "Entourage's Jeremy Piven on How to Become the Most Valuable Playa [sic]." Even though he didn't write it, it still makes him sound like a douche.

But it gets better. In LA magazine’s nightlife issue (via Defamer), Mr. Moving Through Space offers up this following gem: “If I have a rapper like Common rolling hard with me at a club and I hand him a mic and he hits five songs in a row and the crowd goes crazy, I don't feel guilty about drinking on the house.”

Rolling hard with me? Oh, is that how you roll, MC White Bread? Jesus Christ, what a name-dropping tool.

And finally, what’s with the hairpiece, Piven? For serious. You’re not fooling anyone.