Talent Agent, And Battler, In Spotlight
By BERNARD WEINRAUB
Published: August 2, 2004

The reptilian Hollywood talent agent in the HBO series ''Entourage'' is named Ari. And even Ari Emanuel, one of Hollywood's top agents and a partner at Endeavor, acknowledges, with a faint grin, that the agent is more or less based on him.

The show is about a young movie star (played by Adrian Grenier) and his posse of childhood friends from Queens who trade on his money and fame in exchange for serving as his flunkies. A key character is Ari (Jeremy Piven), a frightening agent with a heart of lead who pops Viagra for no apparent reason and dismays everyone around him with his appalling behavior. After screaming at someone, the agent opens his arms and asks to ''hug it out.''

''People definitely see me in the character,'' Mr. Emanuel said in a sleek conference room at his talent agency in the heart of Beverly Hills. ''There's aspects of it that I see. Am I flattered? Are you kidding? I'm scared. I'm scared every time a new episode comes up.''

By all accounts, Mr. Emanuel does not scare easily. At 43 he has emerged as one of the more charismatic and successful figures in the talent agent business, a volatile charmer with a streak of foot-tapping impatience. Mr. Emanual says he's hyper, dyslexic and has a lot of energy. His clients include the directors Martin Scorsese and John Woo; Aaron Sorkin, creator of ''West Wing''; Larry David, co-creator of ''Seinfeld'' and creator of ''Curb Your Enthusiasm''; Conan O'Brien, the television host; and the actors Michael Douglas and Mark Wahlberg. The show is inspired by his first years in Hollywood as he moved from being a rapper and model to acting.

Mr. Wahlberg said the show's characters were loosely based on the members of his own entourage in his Boston neighborhood but far more likable.

''We didn't want to alienate the audience,'' he said. ''Not that I'm not likable. I'm a good Catholic boy. But my past was heavy. Some of my guys had done time. My guys were from the street. My guys had been in trouble. If we had created something real, it would have been more like 'Oz.' We wanted something happier.''

Even those agents and executives who are not fond of him acknowledge that beneath his sizzling style -- beneath his friendly ''booby'' when taking a call or his unfriendly profanity when he fails to get what he wants -- is a shrewd and calculating businessman who has helped turn Endeavor into one of the most successful agencies in Hollywood.

''Ari is relentless,'' said Leslie Moonves, co-president and co-chief operating officer at Viacom, who runs CBS. ''There's no more loyal a guy for his clients. He'll beg, borrow and steal to get his clients what he wants. He clearly loves this business. He loves the art of the deal.''

Mr. Emanuel said with a sigh, ''I'm not a shrinking violet.''

Indeed. He even startled his partners as well as rival agents and executives in Hollywood recently when he publicly assailed one of the most powerful men in town, Michael Eisner, chairman of the Walt Disney Company. At issue was Mr. Eisner's decision not to release the Michael Moore documentary, ''Fahrenheit 9/11.'' Mr. Moore is one of Mr. Emanuel's clients.

It is unthinkable in Hollywood for an agent, who needs all the business he can get, to publicly criticize a mogul who runs an entertainment conglomerate. (Whispered criticism and nasty gossip are another matter.)

In this case, Mr. Emanuel said, Mr. Eisner blocked Miramax, which it owns, from distributing the Moore documentary, which strongly criticizes President Bush's actions before and after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Emanuel said that last spring Mr. Eisner asked him to pull out of the Miramax deal because if Miramax got involved, it would endanger tax breaks that Disney receives for its theme parks and hotels in Florida, where Mr. Bush's brother, Jeb, is governor.

Disney executives denied the accusation. (Bob and Harvey Weinstein, co-chairmen of Miramax, later personally acquired the rights to the film, which has been distributed by Lions Gate Films).

Although there was concern within Endeavor that Disney would no longer respond to phone calls from the agency, within several days the studio executives and the agents were back in business.

''We would not have gotten the release our film received without Ari's work,'' Mr. Moore said in an interview. ''He took a big risk. He did something agents were not supposed to do when he went on the record. He broke one of the unwritten rules. He made sure the film wasn't shelved.''

Mr. Weinstein, who has known Mr. Emanuel for years, said over the phone: ''Ari is fearless in a town where nobody is fearless. He is not afraid to take on anybody, and that includes me, which he has done.''

Mr. Wahlberg said Mr. Emanuel gives his all for clients: ''He's an all-American wrestler. He works harder than anyone else. He put me in a position where I can produce, develop other material too.''

Doug Ellin, the creator of ''Entourage,'' has said that the character was loosely based on two agents, Mr. Emanuel, and his own agent, Jeff Jacobs of Creative Artists. Both agents signed releases waiving the right to sue. But it is Mr. Emanuel, as portrayed by Mr. Piven, a former Endeavor client who knows the agent, who seems to serve as the model, for better or worse.

Though Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Wahlberg both said the series was mostly fictional, there are bits and pieces of the character and the show that ring true.

''I see absolute aspects of me in his character, in his personality,'' Mr. Emanuel said. ''I'm a little calmer now than I was a while back -- not a lot, but a little calmer. I'm married and I have three kids. I'm calmer. But this guy is very fast and very quick and he's a lot funnier than I am.'' (Mr. Emanuel said he does not chew Viagra or do much hugging.)

In one scene, the Ari character lashes into the movie star's business manager, who formerly managed a pizza restaurant, for involving himself in the star's career. ''I don't have business with people like you -- I don't do this,'' the agent says icily. ''Do you think Hugh Jackman calls and says: 'Hey, Ari, love the script. Gotta run it past the pizza boy'?'' (Mr. Jackman is an Endeavor client).

At another point the fictional Ari lashes into the manager again. ''Are you a Communist or a socialist or don't they teach you the difference at Pepperoni U?'' he bellows. ''I'm just a lowly Harvard grad with a J.D. M.B.A. from Michigan.'' (Mr. Emanuel, who graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, said these scenes and many others were fictional.)

Agents and executives who have worked with Mr. Emanuel or tangled with him said the depiction of him on the show is close to the truth.

(Endeavor's A-list clients include Adam Sandler, Matt Damon, Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Garner, as well as executive producers of shows like ''C.S.I.,'' ''The O.C.'' and ''Without a Trace.'')

But others said that Mr. Emanuel's sometimes intemperate behavior often seems to be a tactic to get what he wants. ''For someone who gives off this aura of being so crazy, there's no one in the end who's more rational and sane,'' said Jeff Zucker, president of the NBC Universal Television Group. ''Do I think it's an act? It's his M.O.''

Mr. Emanuel credits his powerfully competitive streak to growing up in a Chicago household where, he said, everyone seemed to be in competition. He was the youngest of three brothers and had to shout the loudest. The oldest brother is Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, an oncologist and chairman of the department of clinical bioethics at the Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health. His middle brother is Rahm Emanuel, a top White House adviser to President Bill Clinton and now a Democratic Congressman from Illinois, covering the northwest side of Chicago and parts of suburban Cook County.

Mr. Emanuel, whose Israeli-American father is a retired pediatrician, recalled that his mother, a psychiatric social worker, would take the boys on protest marches against the Vietnam War and other issues. Mr. Emanuel himself is one of Hollywood's more active Democratic Party fund-raisers.

''There was never a time at the dinner table when politics didn't come up,'' Mr. Emanuel said. ''We always argued. I suppose that affected the way I talk to people. It doesn't mean you don't like somebody.''

Mr. Emanuel began his career in the 1980's as an assistant to Robert Lantz, a veteran New York agent who represents Milos Forman and others. Mr. Lantz suggested that Mr. Emanuel move to Los Angeles and helped him get a job in the mail room of the Creative Artists Agency in 1987. Mr. Emanuel, who said he often speaks to Mr. Lantz, said the older agent taught him four lessons:

''You have to have taste, you have to be aggressive, you have to be fearless and you have to have the ability to sell.''

Mr. Emanuel added: ''You have to have a very strong backbone, too, because you're going to get rejected more than you're going to get accepted. At this point I've got a strong backbone.''