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Johnny 'Drama' Chase is an actor and half-brother of Vincent Chase. Drama has been a C-list actor for most of his career, best known for his starring role as Tarvold in a cult television series, Viking Quest. Later in Entourage, he is cast in another series, Five Towns, which scores 16 million viewers on its premiere. He left the hit show after a run in with a TV executive. Not long after, he was given a holding deal by the network for his own show. He is portrayed by Kevin Dillon.

Background[]

Johnny Chase was born in 1968 in New York, growing up in Queens with childhood friends Eric Murphy, Salvatore "Turtle" Assante, Dom and younger half-brother Vincent Chase. As revealed in episode "I Love You Too", Drama is of Irish ancestry. In "The Sundance Kids", Drama stressed he has some Chilean blood as well in an attempt to get a role in Spanish director Alejandro Teva's next film, although he could have simply made it up.

By Eric's account, Drama used to sell marijuana to Vince, Eric and Turtle's classmates at the school's parking lot. It is revealed in Blue Balls Lagoon that his teenage crush was Brooke Shields

He is frequently referred to as Johnny Drama or just Drama; it is not made clear whether this is just a childhood nickname that has stayed on or whether he actually uses the name Johnny Drama as a stage name.

Drama has lived in and been an actor in Hollywood for at least 12 years. However, his acting career is significantly less successful than Vince's; most of the time he lands roles in C-movies and small-time roles in TV shows or ends up being fired from potential projects, such as the soap opera "Melrose Place" in 1993 (implied to be because of a break-up with one of the female directors), which have bankrupted him, forcing Drama to live in a motel on Wilcox Avenue for a while and sell his favorite Harley Davidson to Michael Madsen to make a living.

Despite this, Drama is apparently well-acquainted with some of the top Hollywood celebrities; he used to go to classes with David Faustino, was a big friend to Jimmy Kimmel before being fired from ''Melrose Place'', boxed with Chris Penn, trained with the late Brandon Lee, frequented the Playboy Mansion with Ralph Macchio before Hefner banned him over an incident involving caged baboons on the property, sold his Harley to Madsen (as mentioned above) and occasionally played golf with Mark Wahlberg (by Mark's account, Drama always paid off a golf bet via personal training sessions etc.). He is also apparently a friend of the Mayor of Beverly Hills.

Also, Drama is not without his own success. His arguably most famous role as Tarvold from the now-cancelled Viking Quest series managed to bring him a fan base and a visit to the annual Comic-Con convention where he dresses as his cult character and signs autographs for a fee.

Entourage[]

Season 1[]

In the first season of Entourage, Drama has not had a serious acting gig for three years and lives with Vince, Turtle and Eric. He takes on the position of being Vincent's chef and fitness consultant, often watching out for his brother and making sure he eats right.

Drama's acting range is limited by a wooden style, but he constantly brings up bit roles he has played over the years in such movies and television shows as Barbershop, Melrose Place, Nash Bridges, The Commish, A Different World, Pacific Blue, Full House, 21 Jump Street, Beverly Hills, 90210, and Star Trek as well as a national television commercial for herpes drug Valtrex, and tries to give acting advice to his brother. He starred as Tarvold in the fictional science fiction series Viking Quest, which spawned his catchphrase "Victory!". In the episode "Drive", Drama reveals he is a Razzie Award winner. Johnny is a member of the union Screen Actors Guild (SAG).[6]

Season 3[]

Drama lands a role as the "older Irish brother" in Five Towns, an Edward Burns television pilot. Burns felt he owed Drama because Drama turned down a role in Burns' successful real-life film The Brothers McMullen, forcing Burns to play it himself. The pilot was picked up in the episode "The Resurrection". After the Five Towns pilot performed very well, Drama effectively resumed a successful career and bought out a $1.5 million condominium. He was mistakenly offered a lead role in Rush Hour 3 by Brett Ratner when Ratner's assistant misread the credits in Drama's show and picked Drama instead of his younger co-star. Drama still however was able to coerce Ratner to give him a role as a French bus driver. During the hiatus of Five Towns, Drama followed Eric, Vince, and Turtle to the Medellin set and successfully secured a role in the film as a military leader who infiltrates Escobar's compound in the movie's climax. However, before this, Drama stirred up trouble by claiming to have received a handjob from the film's lead actress (portrayed by Sofia Vergara), who director Billy Walsh was infatuated with. It is unclear whether this handjob actually occurred, as Turtle finds it unbelievable, coupled with Drama's tendency to exaggerate his macho image, particularly on camera. In the Season 4 season finale, while at the Cannes Film Festival in France greeting the large fan base and cult following of Viking Quest, Drama meets and becomes involved with Jacqueline and begins a long distance relationship with her after he gets back to LA. Drama increased his profile in France inadvertently by having sex on the beach with Jacqueline for three hours. In the end they stop after he sees a large crowd and his friends and brother cheer him on.

Drama claims to be Irish and Chilean, and may be part Japanese. In "Gary's Desk", Drama along with Turtle and Vincent have their own offices in Eric's company, The Murphy Group.

Though it is never shown that Drama is fluent in multiple languages, he has quoted words in Spanish, French, Yiddish and Hebrew.

In the Season Five finale, Johnny becomes the co-owner of a Queens bar that was renamed "Johnny Drama's". After that he became a partner with the owner who had to settle a gambling debt problem.

Season 6[]

In Season Six, Five Towns is still filming and is still a successful show. This changes for Drama when he threatens Five Towns NBC network executive Dan Cokley after he suspects Cokley is trying to sleep with Turtle's girlfriend, Jamie Lynn Sigler. Cokley decides that instead of firing Drama, he will convince the writers to torture and humiliate Drama's character on Five Towns. Drama soon decides that he has enough of his character getting bad scenes and tries to get out of his contract on Five Towns and sign on to star on Melrose Place 2009 after Melrose Place producer Phil Yagoda offered him to audition for a role. Drama had been fired from the original Melrose Place series in 1993.

Season 8[]

In the season finale, after Drama's agent Lloyd Lee resigns from his secretary position at Ari Gold's agency to accept an offer from Gold's rival, Adam Davies at the Terrence McQuewick Agency, where Gold was fired from in 2005. Drama becomes unstable after hearing Lloyd's departure. Ari and Lloyd compete to get him out of his Five Towns contract and onto Melrose Place 2009. Drama is impressed by Ari's capability, so he verbally agrees to make Ari his permanent agent. However, an impassioned speech by Lloyd convinces Drama that he should remain with Lloyd who is more sincere and concerned for Drama. At the first Melrose Place 2009 audition, Drama fears rejection and has a mild heart attack and mental breakdown, urinating in his pants. Drama then eventually decides that he is an actor and must redo the audition. He does well at the audition, but he is turned down by the network for being "too old". Phil Yagoda then notifies Drama that the network decided that he is ready to have a series created for him and offers an exclusive holding deal, which Drama had never had before. Delighted, Drama and Vince head to Italy to film Vince's new movie. His quote is now at least $10,000 (per episode) higher than it was on Five Towns for which he made $75,000 per episode.

Entourage movie (2015)[]

Vince, who separated from his wife Sophia Lear after nine days of marriage, wants to do something new in his career. He calls his former agent-turned-studio head Ari Gold, who offers Vince a leading role in his first studio production. Vince says he will only star in it if he directs. Eight months later, Hyde, the directorial debut by Vince, is in the middle of post-production and is over budget by $15 million. Drama has four key scenes in the new movie.

Vince later gives Ari and and co-financier Travis McCredle a copy of the movie for their viewing. Ari and Travis enjoy the movie but Travis requests that Ari cut the scenes with Vince's brother, Johnny "Drama" Chase, out of the movie or he will not give the film the extra money. With Ari giving him no answer, Travis puts the post-production on hold. Drama is devastated and depressed, urging Vince to cut Drama's scenes, but Vince refuses to cut his brother's scenes. 

Vince and Eric visit Travis to come up with a solution, but this results in Travis saying he did not like Vince's performance either and wants the entire movie to be redone with a new lead and director. In addition, studio CEO John Ellis removes Ari from the production.

The boys soon realize the reason Travis is angry over the movie is because Vince is spending time with Emily Ratajkowski, with whom Travis is infatuated. Learning of this, Ari interrupts Ellis in a boardroom meeting with Larsen and Travis with this information. Surprised, Larsen says he will stay behind the movie but mandates the condition that Ari is no longer working for the studio because, although he agreed his son was being juvenile, Ari had disrespected his son. During this time, the boys are in the hospital as E's ex-fiancée Sloan McQuewick goes into labor. Sloan gives birth to a girl, Ryan Murphy, and the boys celebrate.

Ari arrives at the hospital and also announces that he resigned and invested his severance to complete the movie. Hyde becomes a box office hit, grossing over $450 million worldwide. At the Golden Globe Awards, hosted by Mark Wahlberg, Drama ends up winning the award for Best Supporting Actor. Stunned, Drama goes to accept the award and is silent for a moment before yelling his trademark Viking Quest phrase, "VICTORY!!!".

In a mid-credits scene, Ari's former assistant Lloyd Lee has his wedding and Ari gives him away. When the group gets together for a picture, Billy Walsh suggests that they should make a film (or TV show) about the lives of Vince and the gang.

Relation to Vince[]

Viewers of the series are shown that Drama and Vince are in fact related. Turtle once emphasized that Johnny was Vince's half-brother and that Vincent thought Drama was his cousin until Vince was 14. On the HBO Entourage web site, Drama is also referred to as Vince's half-brother.

Vince and Drama share the same last name. They appear to have the same mother in the episode "Aquamom" when Johnny calls himself her "first born". However, Drama calls Vincent's mother "your mom" in the episode "My Maserati Does 185". However, this could possibly be explained as him referring to her informally as mom if she was a main mother figure in his life.

Drama may be simply very close to Vince's mother, Rita Chase, due to the fact that the line in "My Maserati Does 185" about their shared father is a definitive genetical statement said in a genuine sense. This means that Rita may not actually be Drama's biological mother, but either his stepmother and/or adoptive mother, with Vince and Johnny having the same biological father, who was an alcoholic and left the family when both were relatively young.

Rita Chase may indeed be Johnny's biological mother. His line in "Aquamom",[14] along with the fact that "Aquamom" came after "My Maserati Does 185" may support this theory. This creates, what Entourage creator Doug Ellin has referred to as an auto-perspective angle in which the audience can assume one or the other in reference to Johnny's actual parentage.

During Season Six, Johnny mentions his insecurities to the executive producer of Five Towns saying, "It could be my own insecurity about feeling my mother loved Vince more than she does me", alluding that Johnny's mother is Rita. It is believed that Johnny was born shortly after his parents left high school, thus explaining the age gap between himself and Vince.

Drama is at least nine years older than Vince.

Personality[]

Basically a caricature of the struggling actor in Hollywood, Drama can be best described as a complex, egotistic, slightly numskull, self-destructive, emotionally unstable, insecure, needy, semi-failed C-list actor with a struggling up-and-down career; his personality is alternately macho and warm-hearted, pompous and insecure, depending on the circumstances, and he always speaks his mind, no matter how hilarious his logic may be at times. Having not had a role in 3 years by the beginning of Season 1, Drama is eager more than ever to get “back in the game”. As his brother's celebrity status rocketed, Drama was being left behind and he said at one point: "I've been working steady for the past twelve years, minus the last three.", showing his frustration on not being as successful as his brother.

Drama can also be short-tempered at times, particularly when he misses the hole in golf or when he feels he is disrespected at auditions, and jealous/obsessive in long-term relationships, leading to his split with his French girlfriend from Cannes.

Johnny Drama Resume

Johnny Drama's resume

Drama delights in being an unreformed man. Among his most-quoted quips are: "Nobody appreciates their girlfriend. Until they get herpes from the next broad. Know what I'm saying?", "Hey you remember the Orange County Register said I was a functioning retard." and "VICTORY !".

Always looking to capitalize on Vincent's success, which pays off with a supporting role in a film called Queens Boulevard, a bit part in another film Medellin, and an appearance in a flashy Chinese commercial that Vincent does, Drama is understandably obsessed with finding the one role that will get him the long-awaited fame and success he has craved for since he arrived in Hollywood.

Although he occasionally finds his little brother's charity emasculating, he almost never turns it down. While it would seem that he is nothing more than a leech, Johnny cares deeply for his brother and the rest of the group, springing to their help when needed. Johnny tends to make bigger deals out of things then they need to be. Example his go to order at lunches is a kale salad and half sandwich because "I can't have all those carbs bro."

Performer Kevin Dillon describes his character as a man with a big heart and notes: “He’s totally nuts and that’s why I really like him. He’s been given the gift of delusional confidence. Even though he gets shut down all the time, he gets up, he dusts himself off and he carries on.”

Filmography[]

*In season 4 episode 1 Johnny Drama tells Billy Walsh “I did a couple good Hallmark Hall of Fame movies” although never gives any specific movie titles.

- Miami Vice Cocaine Informant
- The New New Love Boat Merrill Stubing
1987 Barfly Extra
1988 License to Drive Unknown
1988 227 Building Inspector
1989 A Different World Drunk Fat Guy
1989 Booker Dead Body
1990 Cop Rock Singing Felon
1991 LA Law Mute Clerk
1991 Beverly Hills, 90210 Eddie
1991 Point Break Stoned Surfer #5
1993 NYPD Blue Dead Body
1993 Merlose Place
1993 Amongst Friends Kid in Trunk
1994 The Crow Small Role
1994 Full House

Uncle Jesse's Tough Guy Nephew

1994 The Commish Bulimic Pedophile
1994 227 Chris Meier
1994-1995 My So-Called Life
1995 Cornelius and Son
1995 Last One Left Taxi Driver
1996 Beautiful Girls stand-in
1997 Pacific Blue Officer Ross Harper
1997 Viking Quest Tarvold
1998 Kissing a Fool Clubs Fan
1998 Star Trek: Voyager Klingon
1999 Nash Bridges Retarded Brother
2001 7th Heaven High School Swimmer
2002 Barbershop Customer
2003 The Practice Law Clerk
2004 Law & Order: SVU Dead Body
2004 Crossing Jordan Bank Robber
2004 Head On Thug
2004 Jimmy Kimmel Live! Himself
2005 Queens Boulevard Bookie
2005 Chinese energy drink television commercial

Cameo

2005 Law & Order: SVU Streaker
2006 Gotcha! Himself
2006-2009 Five Towns Quinn
2007 Rush Hour 3 French Bus Driver
2007 Medellin U.S. Army General
2008 The View Himself
2011 Johnny's Bananas Lead Role
2012 Hyde HumanResume

Interests[]

Drama loves the Irish band U2; his motto for their concerts is "Floor level or bust". Drama prefers José Cuervo tequila and Johnnie Walker Blue. He also likes enjoying "a good steak, a bottle of red, a couple cigars and some good conversation."[10] He has attended an S&M seminar

Quotes[]

Season 1[]

Johnny "Drama" Chase: We don't wanna tell you she's a bitch, then two weeks later you get back together and you're mad at us for saying that.
Eric Murphy: It's over.

Johnny "Drama" Chase, Turtle: She's a bitch!


:Turtle: [about Kristen] She was in the middle of 40 Deuce with her hand down Vince Vaughn's pants.

Eric: She had her hand down his pants?
Johnny Drama: Both of 'em.
Eric: Vince Vaughn? That puffy motherfucker?
Johnny Drama: No bro, he didn't look puffy at all... He was lookin' real good.
Turtle: Yeah, it was kinda like "Swingers" Vince Vaughn, not "Old School" Vince :Vaughn. It's kinda like New School Vince Vaughn.
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