Ari Gold

From Entourage Wiki

Ari Gold is a Hollywood super-agent, and the current representation for actor Vincent Chase. Ari is also the co-owner of the Miller Gold agency with his one time rival Barbara Miller.

[edit] Brief History

A product of the public school system, he graduated from Harvard and received his JD/MBA from the University of Michigan. Ari has either one brother and no sisters or "two brothers and a whore of a sister," including a sister Elaine who lives in Tenafly, New Jersey. Ari Gold is from Chicago.

Despite his position as one of the most powerful agents in Hollywood, Ari acquiesces to his wife at home (who we are led to believe has a large inheritance from her father), who is able to keep him in check. Despite frequent sexual innuendos, Ari says he "has never cheated on his wife" and "loves liars, but hates cheaters."

Towards the end of Season 2, Ari gets into a rivalry with Terrance McQuewick, his boss and the majority owner of the agency. Ari had been running the agency in Terrance's absence and had been confrontational with him over his desire to replace Ari as Vince's agent. When Ari attempted to break away from the agency along with eight other agents, he was ratted out by Adam Davies and was then terminated from the company. Later in the episode, he appears to have a brief mental breakdown but recovers after Lloyd lectures him and encourages Ari to continue his attempt to open his own agency. In Season 3 Part 1, Ari sets up a small boutique with five other agents working for him, until Terrance and Ari settle on $11 million dollars in return for Ari not suing Terrance for wrongful termination. Later on, Ari intends to use the money to start up a much larger agency, but he is found out. Terrance makes it clear he will spend all of his money to ensure Ari never sees a dime of their agreed settlement. 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. Ari comments that it sounds like the name of a beer company.

Ari and Eric Murphy are the primary influences in Vincent's life. But it is clear that Vincent trusts and follows Eric's advice much more than he does Ari's. This makes for a tense relationship between Eric and Ari. While neither one particularly likes the other, they realize that they are in a marriage of necessity and grow to become close comrades. 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 Ramones' rise and fall.

In the following episode, Ari had a friendly lunch with Vince and Eric, informing them that his dream project, Medellin (the story of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar), is now available, but Vince's new agent Amanda Daniels informs him that this is not the case. Later that night at Vince's birthday party, Ari and Amanda square off, but Ari backs off, knowing that he planted the seed of 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, and Ari tries his best to get the lead role for Vince, but because it is Yom Kippur, Ari has difficulty in doing so and the project is shut down. Vince, believing that Ari would've never let it happen, feels that Amanda let the deal fall through because of their relationship and that filming Medellin would keep him busy for six months. Either way, Amanda dropped Vince in every sense of the word. In the next episode The Resurrection, Vincent and Eric rehire Ari as their agent, since Ari got them the full rights to Medellin as they will be producing the project thus reviving the film.

During Season 4, Ari tries hard to get Vincent a job, but struggles to do so as everyone won't give him a job without validating Medellin first. 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. However, the role is already filled, so Ari and Lloyd begin a game of sabotage to get Vincent the role, successfully after getting Heath Ledger to drop out. However, the intended director drops out as well. Ari, in a last-minute desperation, sells Dana Gordon the Dream Team: actor Vincent Chase, producer Eric Murphy, and director Billy Walsh. Billy gets commissioned to write the script, but deviates from the source material entirely. Ari then struggles to get the studio interested in the new Project "SILO" which, according to Vince, is a gold mine.

In the Season 4 season finale, Ari tries to sell Medellin before the screening, getting large offers, eventually the decision is made by the financier Nick Rubenstein, who has accepted an offer from Yair Marx (2nd of 3 people who wanted to finance the film - he did not finance it of course) to buy the film for $75 Million. After the screening the crowd at Cannes boos it, Marx drops his offer right then and there. Eventually Harvey Weingard, comes and buys the film for $1. Ari is confident that Harvey can fix the film.

In Season 2 we found out that Ari was involved with Dana Gordon at some point before his marriage. In Season 5 Dana and Ari's relationship is confirmed to have occurred before he was dating his wife in the year 1990.

In "The Scene" in Season 1, Ari had taken Viagra before spending time with his wife. In another episode, Ari's wife jokes about his use of Viagra before he goes to the Playboy Mansion for a party.

In Season 5 Ari is offered a studio head position by Allen's old boss; putting him in an awkward position with Vince with Ari choosing between his friendship over business. He eventually turns it down, but not without convincing John Ellis to make Dana Gordon the studio head, instead of Ellis' second choice Amanda Daniels, who still holds a grudge against Ari and Vincent. Also, we learn from Andrew Klein mentor and friend during Ari's day as an assistant to agents at Terrance and Jim Oliver's agency (before the split between those two partners) that Ari almost gave up being an agent and would have went back to Chicago to become a lawyer. It was his old friend and mentor Andrew Klein who convinced him to stay in Hollywood. Sadly Klein rising star as a hot shot agent fell during the Terrance partnership breakup. So Ari convinces Klein to sell his profitable agency to Ari in return for Klein getting more responsibilities, more money and a second chance as life as a big time hot shot agent like Ari. Unfortunately Ari's partner Babs disagrees with Ari's buyout plan, so Ari embarrasses Babs at a luncheon honoring her and he proposes that the agency be split down the middle. Babs finally agrees to the purchase of Andew Klein's agency, but tells Ari that any losses from the purchase will go on Ari's end of the books.

[edit] Noteable Clients

Vincent Chase, James Woods, Gwyneth Paltrow (ex client), Eva Longoria, M. Night Shyamalan, Nick Rubenstein, Mary J. Blige (ex client), Billy Walsh (ex client), Vin Diesel, Mark Wahlberg, Johnny Drama, Larry David

Main Characters/Cast v • t • e
Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) · Eric Murphy (Kevin Connolly) · Johnny 'Drama' Chase (Kevin Dillon) · Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) · Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven)