Jeremy Piven - Biography

A hyper, intense, stage-trained character player, Piven made a breakthrough as a neurotic comedy writer on HBO's late-night parody "The Larry Sanders Show". Born in New York but raised in Chicago, he is the son of Byrne and Joyce Piven, founders of the Piven Theatre Workshop (which nurtured John and Joan Cusack, Rosanna Arquette and Aidan Quinn).

Acting from childhood (he was a member of the Second City National Touring Company), Piven segued to features as one of the bullying jocks in "Lucas" (1986). His subsequent work included playing one of the Gas 'N Sip boys in Cameron Crowe's teen film, "Say Anything" (1989, starring Piven's childhood pal John Cusack), a sailor who gets duped by Cusack in Stephen Frears' "The Grifters" (1990) and one of the devoted fanatics in "Bob Roberts" (1992). Piven had small roles in big films ("White Palace", 1990; "Singles", 1992; "Miami Rhapsody" and "Heat", both 1995), and began to get larger roles in smaller films. These included "The Player" (1992), the romance "Twogether" (1992), the actioner "Judgment Night" (1993) and the troubled comedies "Car 54, Where Are You?" (1994) and "Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde" (1995). His first starring role was as a trouble-making college student in the low-budget, boisterous "PCU" (1994), which was followed by another lead in the Oxford-set romance "E=mc2" (1995), and a turn as a writer romancing movie star Sherilyn Fenn in "Just Write" (1997).

Piven was first seen on TV as one of the stock players on Carol Burnett's short-lived variety series, "Carol & Company" (NBC, 1990-91), and also turned up guesting on "Seinfeld" and "Chicago Hope". But it was his 1992-93 stint on HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show" which really brought him to notice. He co-starred as an out-of-work dad on the short-lived sitcom "Pride and Joy" (NBC, 1995) and appeared in the TV-movie thriller "12:01" (Fox, 1993). Piven's successful return to series TV came in 1995 with his addition to Ellen DeGeneres' eponymous "Ellen" (ABC), as her grating, obnoxious cousin Spence (replacing the male lead vacated by Arye Gross). Piven would return to series TV more than once in the late 1990s, starring in a pair of short lived, lighthearted ABC dramas, "Cupid" (1998)--in which he played a man who believed himself to be the Greek god of love--and "Partners" (1999).

He also remained active in theater with New Criminals, an experimental Chicago-based theater company he co-founded with John Cusack ("unless an entire row of people got up in the middle of a performance and left the theater in disgust," he said, "I felt as though I hadn't done my job"). Piven's long real-life friendship with Cusack proved fruitful professionally as well, as he became Cusack's preferred sidekick/foil in several films, especially those Cusack produced himself. Piven demonstrated their considerable buddy-buddy chemistry in the ultra-quirky but endearing hitman-goes-to-high-school-reunion comedy "Gross Pointe Blank" (1997), playing hitman Cusack's teen crony-turned-dentist Paul. The two actors reteamed in the romantic comedy "Serendipity" (2001), with Piven's best friend character helping Cusack pursue the woman he may have been fated to fall in love with (Kate Beckinsale), and they were both featured in the film adaptation of author John Grisham's legal potboiler "Runaway Jury" (2003) with Piven as a shrewd but inexperienced jury consultant.

Without Cusack, Piven carved out a solid niche as a supporting player and character actor--usually playing a variation of his oily comedic persona but sometimes in straight dramatic roles--in a string of high profile projects, including "Kiss the Girls" (1997), the HBO biopic "Don King: Only In America" (1998), "Very Bad Things" (1998), "The Family Man" (2000), "Rush Hour 2" (2001) and "Black Hawk Down" (2001). In 2003 Piven made the most of an underwritten role as the comic villain in the hit comedy "Old School," playing the dastardly, wound-too-tight college dean who attempts to thwart the fraternity created by three middle-agd men (Luke Wilson, Will Farrell and Vince Vaughn) with comic verve--indeed, he seems to be paying tribute to such archetypal characters created in the late 70s and 80s by actors such as "Animal House's" John Vernon. That same year he also had a brief role as a bland, vacuous newscaster in "Scary Movie 3."