Jeremy Piven’s Career Comes Full Circle In Return To Nantucket

Jeremy Piven has enjoyed decades of success as an actor and a stand-up comedian. He is a two-time Golden Globe and three-time Emmy Award-winning who may be best known for his performance as Ari Gold in Entourage, but one of his first gigs in film took him to Nantucket in the 1980s.

“I have been on Nantucket a million years ago while we were filming a movie called One Crazy Summer,” Piven said. “We shot the whole thing on Nantucket. It was incredible. It's so beautiful out there. It is one of my first movies so the whole thing was magical. You know, just the idea of being in a movie and getting paid to do what I love to do was very surreal, and then being in Nantucket, I'm from Chicago, so it was just a completely different experience.”

Piven, while known for his acting prowess, has always been a stand-up comedian. He quickly pushes back on the notion he “transitioned” to comedy from acting – saying that stand-up comedy has always been a part of him and something he loves doing.

As part of an international tour that will take him across the country and to the United Kingdom, Piven will be making his way to Nantucket on Sunday, July 6^th to perform a pair of stand-up comedy shows at 6:30 and 9 p.m. at the Dreamland Theatre. He says that doing comedy is an intrinsic part of him and that he is excited that his comedy tour is bringing him back to a place where his professional journey began.

"I'm just excited to be there and it's an honor to make people laugh," Piven said. "I'm just someone that really enjoys the action of it. When it comes to saying why (people) should come out, if you have any reference from my work, you know I put everything I have into it, and that's what this will be. If you don't think I can do it, I look forward to surprising you. If you know I can do it, I look forward to enjoying it with you.”

Piven says like any creative form, you need to respect comedy, work hard, and embrace the moment – regardless of what that moment during the show is.

“Whatever that moment is, you don't fight it," Piven explained. "If there's an accident, you just kind of go with it and that could be a beautiful, happy accident. The same skill set that you use with acting and navigating that and performing, you can utilize that with stand-up. So I think each form informs the other. I'm actually a better actor now because of stand-up.

“I'm a better actor because of stand-up because acting is a momentum sport that you need momentum with," Piven continued. "And with stand-up, you are just constantly performing and yes you are performing your own material, but it's still a performance. So then when I go back to acting, there's no rust. Where most actors are waiting for their next job, I'm performing most nights. So oddly enough, it really has helped the acting.”

Piven said he can’t compare the two if he had to make a choice of whether he enjoys acting or performing stand-up comedy more.

“You can't compare them in terms of what is more enjoyable because they're different forms of creativity that are so rewarding and challenging and terrifying and all of those great things,” he said. “Stand up can be a little bit more of immediate gratification because you hear the laughs and you get to have that the immediacy of it. But they're both incredible."

Piven said that over the years, he believes stand-up has become more and more popular due to the authenticity of the performances in a world that is becoming more and more performative.

"The people that started stand-up like the Lenny Bruce's of the world and Richard Pryor's, they were kind of fearless,” Piven explained. “George Carlin, and they were expressing themselves in a certain way where they didn't second guess themselves, and people gravitated towards them. The culture has changed so much and there are all of these variables. There's social media where people can profess to be a certain way and make performative gestures and rail against the universe and celebrate their own virtuousness. There's a lot of that, and I think people long for the authenticity of stand-ups because they may not be desperate for the world to see them in a certain way. They are just authentic, and authenticity is the highest vibration, and so people gravitate towards that.

“A lot of times in our culture, people are desperate to be seen in a certain way, and I don't want to know who someone isn't. I want to know who they are,” he continued. “That's one of the reasons I think stand-up has become so popular is everything feels a bit self-conscious and premeditated and packaged where stand up can be a bit rougher and authentic and spontaneous.”

Anyone interested in attending either show can purchase tickets here. You can learn more about Piven, his career, and his tour here.

“What I know is that Nantucket is a beautiful place and I can't wait to get there," Piven said. "It's been a while. I am looking forward to it. There is a lot of great history there, and it's just stunning.”