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Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier)

Gender: Male
Occupation: Actor
* First appeared on July 18, 2004.

Vincent Chase grew up in Queens, New York, along with neighborhood friends Eric, Turtle, Dom, & Cara. Vince's father was an alcoholic, 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 is 32 years old, his 29th birthday being the main storyline in the season 3 episode "Less Than 30", hence the title "Less Than".

Vince's grandfather was Japanese and he 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.

Because of his performance in 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.

His new agent Amanda Daniels 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. Vince also begins a romantic relationship with Amanda, after she boldly propositions him for sex, so they can "get it out of the way."

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 confronts her about it and plans on firing her, only to find out that the death of the project had been out of her hands. Amanda then leaves Vince, both professionally and romantically. 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 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 chooses to forgo Benji. He decides he must find a way to get back on Smoke Jumpers.

Ari takes matters into his own hands to try and get Vince back on Smoke Jumpers. Ari plans a seemingly harmless day of golf with Alan Gray. Ari knows Alan is a compulsive gambler so intends to hustle Alan, and bet Vince into the movie. However, his plan backfires because Alan's golf instructor is none other than Phil Mickelson. After Ari loses a close game to Alan, Alan becomes enraged because Ari brought up the subject of Vince and Smoke Jumpers after promising he wouldn't. Alan becomes so angry that he has a heart attack on the golf course and dies. At Alan's funeral Ari speaks with John Ellis, Alan's boss. Ari tells Ellis that Alan promised Vincent Smoke Jumpers, but Ellis has other things to discuss with Ari. He wants Ari to take Alan's old job and run Warner Bros. Pictures. This would put Ari in a position to not only get Vince back on Smoke Jumpers, but to give Vince roles in any future films financed by Warner Bros. Studio. When Vince hears this information, he has a bittersweet feeling because he wants to do Smoke Jumpers, but he doesn't want to lose Ari as his agent. Ari reconsiders taking the job, but gets bad news from his fellow Hollywood friend and former flame, Dana Gordon. Vince's former agent Amanda Daniels would run the studio if Ari doesn't take the job. Ari and Vince do not have a good relationship with Amanda after Vince fired her as his agent.

Ari goes to Amanda's office to try and bury the hatchett with Amanda. Ari offers to turn down the job if she puts Vince in Smoke Jumpers. Amanda calls Ari's bluff thinking that he is going to turn down the job anyway. This makes Ari extremely angry, and he storms out of Amanda's office to go meet with John Ellis. Vince goes to meet with Ari under the assumption that Ari had taken the position at the studio. However, to everyone's surprise Ari turned down the job. He informs Vince and Eric that he recommended his friend Dana Gordon, and she was given the job as studio head instead of Amanda. During Vince's meeting with Ari, Dana calls to thank Ari for the recommendation. On speakerphone, Dana assures Vincent that he is in Smoke Jumpers for close to his full quote. This is great news to everyone. Ari is still Vince's agent, Eric's best friend's career is back on track, Vince is no longer in danger of going bankrupt, and is no longer in danger of ending his movie career on a box office bomb.

Unfortunately, Vince had heated confrontations with the director of Smoke Jumpers. The director decided to fire Vince from the set of the movie, though he did not have the authority to. This leads to the director going crazy during a meeting with Dana, Ari, Vince, E, and John Ellis. John Ellis then decides to drop the project and Vince, E, Turtle, and Drama, head back to Queens, where Vince is offered a lead in Martin Scorsese's adaptation/update of The Great Gatsby, courtesy of Gus Van Sant's liking of Vince's Smoke Jumpers footage.

Inspiration

Entourage Executive Producer Mark Wahlberg named the character after legendary Hollywood acting teacher Vincent Chase, whom Wahlberg became friends with while working on the 1997 Bill Paxton film 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).