Ari Gold is a fictional character on the comedy-drama television series Entourage and its sequel film. He is played by Jeremy Piven.
Biography Ari Gold (born 1967) is a graduate from Harvard University and has a J.D./M.B.A. from the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.
Ari is Jewish and has one brother, Howard. In spite of making multiple exaggerations of a sister, Ari also stated that he does not have a sister. Despite his position as one of the most powerful agents in Hollywood, Ari's aggressive and sometimes boorish behavior is frequently held in check by his wife (who is independently wealthy, having received a large inheritance from her father). Despite frequent sexual innuendos, Ari has never cheated on his wife since they married.
Ari and Eric Murphy are the primary influences in Vince's professional life. Due to their lifelong friendship, Vince follows Eric's advice much more than he does Ari's, despite Ari's wealth of experience. This leads to frequent verbal clashes between Eric and Ari. While neither particularly likes the other, they realize that they are in a marriage of necessity. But as time passes, they grow to have a mutual respect for one another, which eventually leads to them becoming friends with Ari mentoring Eric as he becomes a talent manager.
In season 1, Ari tries to get Vince to do a film called Matterhorn which he describes as being like, "Die Hard at Disneyland." Vince and Eric hate the script and are interested in an independent film - Queens Boulevard - that they've been introduced to by Ari's former assistant turned rival agent, Josh Weinstein.
Ari is angry that another agent is whispering in the ear of his client and discourages Vince from doing the film due to its small budget. Unmoved, Vince insists Ari lock down the movie. Ari later claims that he has received no offer from the producers, but Vince and Eric learn otherwise when they are invited to a beach party by Josh Weinstein. Panicked that he's about to lose Vince as a client, Ari abandons his son's birthday party to go talk to Vince and Eric at the beach. He confronts Josh Weinstein and humiliates him in front of his guests. Ari then finds Vince and admits that the offer came in and that he lied about it because he's trying to do what's best for Vince's career. He agrees to get the deal done provided that Vince's next movie is a big-budget studio project.
During most of season 2, Ari is fixated on getting Vince interested in doing Aquaman a mega-budget superhero action film being produced by Warner Bros. Vince balks at the offer, believing it's not his style, but Ari insists that Vince desperately needs to do a "commercially viable popcorn flick" in order to raise his profile in the wake of season 1's micro-budget indie flick, Queen's Boulevard. Vince resists the pressure of both Ari and Eric to do Aquaman until he finds out James Cameron has been tapped to direct. Vince tells Ari to lock down the film, only to find out that the role is no longer guaranteed for him as Cameron isn't familiar with Vince's work.
Ari arranges a meeting between Vince and Cameron but is accidentally undermined by Eric who simultaneously convinces Cameron to see Queen's Boulevard, which is premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Cameron cancels the meeting, opting to view the film instead, leaving Ari angry with Eric. Cameron leaves the Queen's Boulevard screening 10 minutes into the film, and Ari is convinced Aquaman is lost. Shortly after, Ari calls Vince and conferences in Cameron who offers Vince the lead in Aquaman.
Toward the end of Season 2, Ari butts heads with Terrance McQuewick, the founding partner, and majority owner of the agency. Tensions boil over when Ari becomes convinced that Terrance is attempting to steal Vince as a client. Ari mentions an incident involving Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure where Terrance quickly snatched up Keanu Reeves while handing Alex Winter over to Ari. After careful consideration, Ari realizes Terrance is going to attempt to force him out of the agency and attempts a coup of his own by organizing a clandestine lunch meeting with eight hand-picked fellow agents. The plan fails when Adam Davies (a rival agent), rats Ari out to Terrance, who quickly has all of his employees sign letters of commitment to his company. Ari has a brief mental breakdown but recovers after Lloyd delivers an inspirational speech and encourages Ari to move forward with his plan to open his own agency. At the end of season 2, Ari sets up a small boutique with five other agents working for him. Terrance and Ari eventually agree to a severance settlement of $11 million in return for Ari not suing Terrance for wrongful termination. Ari intends to use the money to open the largest agency in Hollywood, but word once again gets back to Terrance who makes it clear he will tie up the matter in prolonged court proceedings for years so that Ari will not have the money he needs to proceed with his plan. In the end, Ari's former mentor - and former boss before Terrance - Barbara "Babs" Miller makes a deal to partner with him to start a new agency. It ends up being called Miller Gold Talent Agency (MGA). Ari wryly observes that it sounds like the name of a beer company.
While Ari becomes preoccupied with the business of getting the new agency set up, his attention to Vince's career begins to wane. Their personal and professional relationship shatters at the end of the Season 3 Part 1 finale when Eric and Vince fire Ari due to his risky business move that ends up costing Vince the role of Joey Ramone in a biographical film documenting the story of legendary punk rock group The Ramones.
In the following episode, Ari has a friendly lunch with Vince and Eric, informing them that Vince's dream project, Medellin (the story of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar), is now available, but Vince's new agent Amanda informs him that this is not the case. Later that night at Vince's birthday party, Ari and Amanda squares off, but Ari backs off, knowing that he has planted doubt in Vince's mind. Vince decides not to accept any new projects until he is certain that Medellin is off the table.
During the 17th episode of Season 3, "Return of the King," Ari informs Vince that Medellin has officially become available. In spite of the fact that he is no longer Vince's agent, Ari tries his best to secure the lead role for Vince, but because it is Yom Kippur, the head of the studio (an elderly, Orthodox Jewish gentleman) refuses to discuss business matters, and eventually decides to shut down production on the film, entirely. Vince concludes that Amanda let the deal fall through because of their romantic relationship, since filming Medellin would have kept him busy for six months. The accusation causes Amanda to end their torrid love affair and drop Vince as a client. In the next episode The Resurrection, Vince rehires Ari as his agent, after Ari helps Vince and Eric secure the rights to produce Medellin themselves.
During Season 4, Ari tries hard to get Vince a job, but struggles to find offers due to the uncertainty surrounding the quality of Medellin. Eventually, the trailer for Medellin is leaked, inducing a flood of offers. The film they decide upon comes from an adaptation of a book Eric gave to Ari some time ago. It is seen as a potential blockbuster for Vincent; Ari goes to Dana Gordon to acquire the role only to find that Heath Ledger has already been cast as the lead. Ari convinces Heath Ledger to drop out after pointing out that he recently did Brokeback Mountain and that this new film has similar homoerotic undertones, which could damage Ledger's status as a budding sex symbol. However, the intended director drops out as well. Ari, in a last-ditch effort, sells Dana Gordon the "Medellin Dream Team" of star Vincent Chase, producer Eric Murphy, and director Billy Walsh. Billy gets a half million-dollar commission to adapt the screenplay but ends up writing an entirely original screenplay instead. Ari and Dana reluctantly team up to convince the studio head to greenlight Billy's new project, SILO, which Vince believes will be excellent.
In the Season 4 season finale, Ari is confident they will receive multiple competing offers from studios who wish to distribute Medellin but runs into trouble when financier Nick Rubenstein, desperate to get his money back, demands that Ari sell the film before its screening, in case it ends up being terrible. Initially, the only such offer comes from Yair Marx, a wealthy foreign businessman who has just launched a film distribution company based out of Dubai. Nick wants to accept Yair's offer of $30 million, which would recoup the film's budget, but Ari and Billy balk at the offer as they want to sell to a "real studio" who will be able to properly promote the film and generate potential Oscar buzz. Hours before the screening, Ari and Eric are able to convince Dana Gordon to match Yair's $30 million offer, only to find that Nick has already agreed to sell the film to Yair for $75 million. After the screening, the crowd at Cannes boos it and hastily exits the theater. Dana thanks Ari for not selling her the film, saying it's probably the one nice thing he's ever done for her. Yair points out that he never signed anything to make the deal official, and immediately drops his offer. Eventually Harvey Weingard buys the film for $1. Ari is confident that Harvey can fix the film.
In Season 5, no offers are coming in for Vince after Medellin gets a direct-to-video release. Ari informs a shaken Vince that he has been placed in "movie jail" after his mega-hyped film turned out to be a bomb. Ari expresses confidence to Vince of a looming comeback, but later confides in Mark Wahlberg that Vince's chances are only 50/50.
After a series of meetings with every studio in town ends with no one wanting to cast Vince as a lead in anything, Vince asks Ari about the possibility of pursuing a supporting role in a new big-budget film called Smoke Jumpers, a script that Eric found with Edward Norton attached as the lead. Ari attempts to secure the second lead for Vince but finds out that the film has become property of Warner Bros., a studio that refuses to hire Vince after Vince demanded $20 million to do the Aquaman sequel and was subsequently fired from the franchise.
Ari arranges to play golf with WB studio head Alan Gray in an effort to "bet" Vince into the film by hustling Alan at golf only to find that Alan has significantly improved his game after taking private lessons from Phil Mickelson. After Ari loses his wager, Alan, furious at Ari for even bringing up Vince's name, suffers a fatal heart attack. Shortly thereafter, Ari is offered the chance to succeed him by the studio's chairman John Ellis for $10 million. Ari is not sure what to do: if he takes the job, he could give Vince any role he wanted with the studio, but it would also mean that he couldn't be Vince's agent, which could also end their friendship. He decides to turn the job down, but then he learns that Amanda Daniels - who still holds a grudge against Vince and Ari - is next in line for the job. Ari attempts to make peace with her, offering to put his full support behind her for the job as long as she agrees to add Vince as the second lead in Smoke Jumpers. Saying that Vince isn't good enough, she refuses, adding that, "Ari can kiss his relationship with the studio goodbye." Ari then declares that he will accept the job to spite her, but instead convinces John Ellis to give the position to Dana Gordon. Not only does this guaranteed Vince the second lead in Smoke Jumpers but it also repairs his relationship with Dana, which had suffered considerable damage after the fallout over Medellin and SILO.