Jeremy Piven talks "Wisdom of the Crowd," playing anti-heroes
Actor Jeremy Piven played hot-tempered power agent Ari Gold on HBO's "Entourage." Now, he's taking on a much more serious role in the new CBS drama, "Wisdom of the Crowd," as a wealthy tech entrepreneur torn to pieces over his daughter's murder.
He believes the wrong man went to prison so he invents a real-time crowd-sourcing application called Sophie to help find her killer.
Piven joined "CBS This Morning" to discuss his new character and how he differs from his Emmy-winning turn as Ari Gold.
"I believe he's an anti-hero," Piven said of his character. "I think that that's an interesting duality in the way that he's singularly focused on figuring out who killed his daughter, and maybe a little selfish in that way."
As a result of the crowd sourcing, other crimes end up being solved which allows the show to also have a procedural element to it.
"I think both my character and I resist that a little bit," Piven said. "But you're going to see that he realizes that people want to do something good in this life, and it's inspiring to him."
Despite the somber premise of the show, Piven said audiences can expect some laughs.
"I think that's the fun that we've been having with it all is finding that balance," he said. "We are going for our laughs."
Piven is perhaps best known for his role as Ari Gold on the HBO series "Entourage." He played the bullish, almost sociopathic Hollywood agent so well, that some were convinced he was like Gold off-screen, too.
"So, you know, do I have the same ideology as Ari Gold did? No. I'm a stage actor from Chicago," Piven said. "I think if you embrace your characters, the first thing you do as an actor is you don't judge your character in any way, shape or form. You can't. Because if you judge them, you're not going to be giving them as much possible depth or integrity as they can, because no one is a devil in their own story, right?"
But now, Piven is happy to play a character who he calls "so incredibly human."
"He's broken. He hasn't dealt with his grief. And I think it's such a fertile premise for a show and for a character that I'm loving it," Piven said.
