My Big Break - My Big Break and Entourage

My Big Break and Entourage

My Big Break has repeatedly been referred to as 'a real-life Entourage', HBO's fictional series about four friends living in Hollywood. Although Tony Zierra began filming his project long before Entourage, parallels exist between the two. They're both portraits of male friendship, Hollywood, stardom, and the ups and down of the film business. In My Big Break, Greg Fawcett's outspoken, often outrageous personality is similar to the character of Johnny Drama in Entourage. Wes Bentley and the fictional Vincent Chase have a number of striking similarities. They both shot to stardom quickly and were viewed as "potentially the best young actor of his generation", they both angered high-powered Hollywood insiders by their unwillingness to "play by the rules", they both ended up struggling with severe substance abuse problems and were arrested while in possession of drugs. Perhaps the most direct similarity is that Bentley had a well-known feud with mega- producer Harvey Weinstein while on Entourage Vincent Chase had a similar feud with Harvey Weingard, the fictional version of Weinstein. According to Entourage executive producer Mark Wahlberg, Entourage was originally conceived of as a documentary about him and his friends but he chose a fictional approach to keep the content more satirical. Whereas Entourage is mostly light in tone and focuses on the flashy perks of Hollywood, My Big Break is much grittier. The documentary directly takes on the darker side of celebrity and the consequences of pursuing success and fame in the film business.