 What are you up to?
My girlfriend [model Rhea Durham] is getting ready to have our baby, so it’s mostly all about that. It’s quiet around here. At least it was till the new neighbors moved in.
Who moved in?
Well, Jessica Simpson moved in next door, and the Beckhams live just down the street. So now there are paparazzi all the time. They don’t bother with me much, but there’s a lot more commotion around here.
Have you ever stopped over to ask the Beckhams for a bowl of sugar?
Never met them. They seem like nice enough people, though.
Max Payne, your new film, is based on a video game. Have you ever played it?
No, but you’d be surprised how elaborate the story is. My assistant got addicted, but I can’t do that stuff. My girl’s been so tolerant of my vices. If I add video games to the list, I’m sure she’ll leave me. The film, though, is going to be very satisfying for the die-hard gamers.
You’re from Dorchester, a working-class Boston neighborhood. Big family?
Youngest of nine kids. And my dad had four others from another relationship. He was a Teamster. He came down to the set of The Departed when we were shooting in Boston.
Did he enjoy it?
Yeah, but he was griping a little: “These fahkin’ Hollywood guys.” He didn’t like that the Teamsters on the set didn’t work as hard as he used to. But he liked the movie.
A lot of Boston swears by that movie. You know—it’s “one of ours.”
Yeah. And they were nice enough to let some of the accent slide, instead of everybody just saying, “Pahhk the cahh at the bahh.”
There’s a history of abominable Boston accents in film. The one Robin William used in Good Will Hunting comes to mind.
I know. Even Marty [Scorsese] had no clue how a Boston accent sounds. It’s a totally different world—Boston and New York are so different, and then, on top of that, Irish versus Italian.
The most quoted line from that film is yours: “I’m the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy.”
Right! I know. I read the line in the script and thought, Yeah, it’s funny. But I didn’t expect it would get this kind of reaction. Every time I said it, Marty would completely bust up.
You have a two-year-old, Michael, and a five-year-old, Ella. Does Ella understand what it is you do for a living?
For the most part, I try to keep that a secret. For her sake. The only thing she’s actually seen is her daddy on TV being chased by a gorilla.
A gorilla?
Planet of the Apes was on TV.
Right. so you travel with a big group of friends and executive-produce HBO’s Entourage. What’s your gang like now?
The guys around me I’ve known for a long, long time. They’re people I know I can trust. And, yeah, there’s definitely a Johnny Drama, a Turtle, an E. But the idea for Entourage came from a short film that I shot about some of my old friends, Boston guys who had a rap group. I got them a gig opening for ’N Sync. We filmed them practicing for that, all their trials and tribulations, and everything that went into trying to “make it.” A number of people at the network loved it—the guys, the situations—and they said, “Why don’t you make a show with them?” I said, “No fucking way. But I’ll make a show about a similar kind of thing, with actors.”
Growing up, you were what my grandmother would call a hoodlum, but you managed to pull yourself out of it. You’ve talked about a priest.
You mean Father Flavin. A good man. He was a very important influence on me back then, and he still is; I consider him a close friend. We talk all the time. Without him, things might have turned out a lot worse for me. They would have; I’m sure of that. He was one of the people trying to straighten me out. My brother Donnie helped me a lot, too, tried to keep me on the right track.
Did that life experience help you deal with the bullshit in Hollywood?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. But more than anything, I think about my friends who didn’t make it out. I mean, we were all fucked up, doing things we shouldn’t have been doing. But looking back, so many of those guys were so smart and so funny and could have been so successful. Then I look at where I am, and I think, They could be doing this. And they’d be great. The thing is, where I grew up, if you walked around the neighborhood saying you wanted to be an artist or a writer, you’d get the living shit kicked out of you. I like that I get to play a badass and at the same time tell kids, people from my neighborhood, that there is a lot of good to the world, when it might not be so obvious, living where they are, dealing with bad situations.
Being in the entertainment industry, do you drive a Prius?
No. I drive a Mercedes. When Mercedes comes out with a hybrid, I’ll drive it.
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