Here’s Adrian Grenier, 38, shirtless on the beach and going for a run in Miami yesterday. He’s a good looking guy he’s just much hotter to me when his hair is wet. I had the pleasure of seeing Grenier in person a couple of years ago. I thought the same thing back then, that he needed a haircut, but I have a thing for bald men.

Grenier is of course known for his work on HBO’s Entourage, which was finally made into a movie over three years after the series wrapped in September, 2011. The film is coming out in June, 2015. In the interim Grenier has focused on filmmaking, he’s made documentaries such as Teenage Paparazzo and the new six minute film, Bee’s Invoice (you can watch it here). Bee’s Invoice is about the hidden economic value of natural resources and makes the case that good environmental policy is good economic policy. It’s highly stylized and is both informative and entertaining. Grenier is a thoughtful person who is trying to make a difference, at least that’s the impression I had after seeing him speak.

In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Grenier addresses the main argument against Entourage – that it’s misogynistic in that the female characters are just vessels for male fantasy. He defends the show, which is understandable but I don’t know if he makes a good case here. There’s a lot more to the interview and you can read it on The Daily Beast. Here are some excerpts:

One criticism often levied at Entourage was the depiction of women on the show—that they were, by and large, empty vessels merely meant to service the needs of the male characters or serve as eye-catching “scenery.”
Right. Eye-candy. Great furniture, though? [Laughs] I would disagree. When I first read the script, I declined to audition. I said, “This is misogynistic, it’s base, it’s immature, and superficial. Pass.” I was ultimately convinced otherwise, and I’m very glad that I was. In retrospect, I was wrong. On the surface, yes, it may be that. It’s candy in a lot of ways—and not just the women, but the conspicuous consumption and indulgence of cars, drugs, parties, and so forth. It’s a male fantasy in a lot of ways.

But at its core, and I think the reason why the show lasted so long, is that it’s about brotherhood and friendship. It’s about the values that transcend all of that stuff and actually allow them to survive all that glitz and glamour. Plus, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Hollywood, but the show is a reflection of reality. There are a lot of women there who give women a bad name because of the way they portray themselves, carry themselves, and indulge themselves, and there are a lot of men who help to propagate that. So to ignore that reality would be disingenuous. And this isn’t a “activism” show. I’d tell Doug, “Come one, do they have to drive a Hummer? What are we trying to say about the environment? Can they drive a Prius?” And he’d tell me, “That’s not who these guys are. It would not be authentic if they drove a Prius.” And I respected that, because it held a mirror to reality.

Also, a lot of the tertiary “wallpaper” characters on the show are eye-candy, but many of the recurring characters are strong women. Dana Gordon. Sloan. Ari’s wife. Vince’s girlfriends. Carla Gugino’s character. Sasha Grey was… empowered. [Laughs]

[From The Daily Beast]

I think that Grenier is saying that the women were wallpaper because that’s the reality of that situation, just like the fact that his character drove a Hummer. The show wasn’t endorsing that lifestyle, it was just portraying it authentically. He’s also admitting that it’s not something he condones and that he did have a knee jerk reaction to how misogynistic it was, which he eventually got over. I don’t have a dog in this fight because I never got into Entourage. I tried to watch it, it was just too much of a bro show for me to enjoy.

Grenier also admitted that he was involved in collective bargaining with the other cast to make sure they got the best deal for the movie. He said, of the controversy over the wait to make the film, that it was “Politics and it’s sh*t-talking. People are looking for controversy, and they’ll find it if they have to. You negotiate, and until the deal is done, there is no movie… Our contracts on the show were one thing and then after that there were no contracts, so some players wanted to manipulate that fact. But we decided as a team to stick together, and stand united.” Good for them. He seems like a stand up guy.

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