Now you see him

CHICAGO -- When Jeremy Piven won an Emmy last year for playing the fictional Hollywood agent Ari Gold on HBO's "Entourage," he recalled in his acceptance speech his first real-life agent, who had told him, at age 23, that he wouldn't find work until his mid-40s.

Telling the story again, the 41-year-old Piven says, "I had been studying [acting] since I was 8 years old. I had just got out of NYU, the National Theatre of Great Britain, Drake University, done my time, I'm ready to go. 'Oh, wait, I got to wait 22 years before I contribute?' "

Of course, the agent was wrong. Through his 20s and well into his 30s, Piven made the kind of living, in TV , film , and on stage, that most actors only dream about. He had supporting parts on "Ellen" and "The Larry Sanders Show" and showed up in a host of movies starring John Cusack (Piven's childhood friend) .

But the agent was also sort of right: It wasn't until Piven was just shy of 40 that he landed two comic roles -- the weasel of an agent in "Entourage" and the even bigger weasel of a college dean in "Old School" -- that would make him a household (or, at least, HBO-subscribing-household) name. And put him in the position to be offered a role that director Joe Carnahan knew Piven was just the actor for: Buddy Israel in "Smokin' Aces," which opens Friday.

Buddy is a Vegas magician turned mobster who finds himself holed up in a Lake Tahoe hotel penthouse , with a supposed $1 million hit fee on his head , after snitching on the town's number-one crime boss. In a n ensemble cast loaded with big names (Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Alicia Keys, Ryan Reynolds, the rapper Common , and Jason Bateman), Piven is the anchor. As several competing professional assassins stake out the hotel in scenes increasingly comic and gruesome, inside the penthouse, Buddy is self-destructing -- a sweaty, jittery, shouting mess in a bathrobe, with the hollow eyes of a man who knows he's about to die.

Piven calls it "the best role I've ever had in my life," and given what he's asked to do in the role and the movie's pedigree -- it is produced by the prestigious Working Title Films , and Carnahan is a hotshot young director -- you get the feeling he's not just saying that.

"[Buddy ] is a guy you pick up in the third act of his life, and he's a guy who had amazing potential and squandered it," Piven says. "So, that's the tragedy: He has to look at himself in the mirror for the first time and face himself and have that moment. They put a camera in your face, and that's why you're an actor, to play those transitional moments."

Carnahan, who became a director to watch with the 2002 cop drama "Narc," says part of the fun in casting Piven was to "take him out of his wheelhouse, kind of deprive him of the ability to be funny and crack wise. He doesn't have any problem going away from that, because he feels like, 'I can do all things well.' "

It's a confidence that comes from practically a lifetime of acting, starting at his mother and late father's acting school and theater, the Piven Theatre Workshop, in Evanston , Ill., a Chicago suburb. "There are things in this life that I can do and can't do," Piven says. "I've logged the hours as an actor since I was 8, so it's something I know. My father, when he was alive, could perform 'King Lear' for you right here, but he couldn't necessarily start a lawn mower. That's just the way we're wired.

"You are the way you are from an early age, we all know that," Piven says. "I had a need to make people laugh, just from the get-go, and I found that was a very fun, comfortable, great place for me, and I was on the stage so early that that was a great, comfortable place for me."

Piven's first brush with Hollywood came in the mid-'80s, when, a year after graduating from Drake University, in Iowa, he appeared in "Lucas" and "One Crazy Summer." More acting education followed, at NYU and in London, and then Piven returned to Chicago, where, when his agent wasn't telling him he wouldn't work until his 40s, he acted in plays and made trips to Los Angeles for whatever small film and TV roles came his way.

"I knew that I wasn't disciplined enough to go to LA looking for a job, so I stayed [in Chicago] until they literally pulled me out for 'Larry Sanders , ' " he says.

Still, it took some time to feel set in Hollywood. Piven remembers . "The head writer then, Paul Simms, came by my place one time and said, 'Why do you live in a pool house, man?' I said, 'What do you mean?' He goes, ' No, you're on a show, and we're doing well. You got to get out of the pool house.' So, I got out of the pool house."

The parts kept getting a little bigger, and in 1998, Piven had his first shot at stardom, playing the lead in the TV drama "Cupid." But the show, shot in Chicago, was quickly cancel ed. Five years would go by, Piven still working regularly , before "Old School" and a year later "Entourage" would position him as one of the funniest supporting actors in Hollywood. "There's guys who understand humor on several different levels, and that's certainly Jeremy," Carnahan says . "Jeremy's got the restlessness of a gambler. He always wants to push himself and prod himself."

Of his breakout success, some 30 years after he started acting, Piven says, "There have been times when it has been very frustrating. There are a lot of guys that I know that came up with me and just said, 'You know what? I can't do it anymore. I can't walk into those rooms and audition.' [But] you do it, because you know the feeling of connecting on stage. So, you jump through all the hoops to get back to that."

Plus, he had that confidence : "To be honest, I've always been delusional, or maybe it's not delusional. I always felt, like Shakespeare says, 'The readiness is all.' It was kind of, I am going to get a shot someday."

As for whether or not he could have been so philosophical about his career when he was young and struggling, Piven says, "Everyone has a different timetable ; our journeys are completely different. I was very lucky for this particular journey because I got to apprentice this job."

In a loopier moment, near the end of a long day, Piven sums up things a little differently : "I'm not a boy now. I'm a man, I hope. I hope I've had my artistic bar mitzvah somewhere. I think 'Smokin' Aces' is my artistic bar mitzvah, by the way, for the record."

The success or failure of "Smokin' Aces" could help determine what parts come next and which directors come calling. Piven says he's not nervous about the reaction to the film, and when asked about his future, he says in a cool, nonchalant tone, "I'd like to stick around the party a little bit longer."

Then, quickly becoming more sincere, he adds, "I'd like to carry an entire piece. I really would."

Mark Bazer can be reached at mebazer@yahoo.com.