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What is your relationship with Jeremy Piven like? For it to work, you’d think that you two would have to get along pretty well off the set.

I think we do, we really do. We don’t hang out socially or anything but I think we have an awesome working relationship. I have a whole lot of respect for him and I like to think he has respect for me as well. We get along really well. He’s very kind and gentle and creative and collaborative and really supportive. I think he’s really smart; he’s a smart actor and he’s a secure actor. He knows that if I do a good job it only makes him look better and if he does a good job it only makes me look better. He understands that there’s this circle of support going on, you know the better we get along, the better it all works out.

It always seems to me, I could be wrong, that Piven does a lot of improv in his scenes. Are a lot of scenes off book with him or does he stick to the script? How does that work?

Well, the vast majority of what you’re seeing on screen has all been scripted. You know Jeremy being Jeremy, he has a really strong, deep background in improv and so he’s always improv-ing, that’s for sure. But the truth is very little of that makes it to the final cut. So, the first thing I’ll say about that is, it’s really exhilarating for me as an actor because I don’t know what he’s going to say or do at any given moment. And that forces me to be in the moment, that forces me to bring my A-game. So that’s the first thing I’ll say. And then the second thing I’ll say is that the fact that people still think that a lot of what makes it to the screen is improv is a testament to the writing. It’s really good writing and in the hands of a capable actor like Jeremy it really comes off as seeming like it’s off the cuff and spontaneous and just made up in the moment. That’s the way it should be.

What’s your guys shooting schedule like right now? Are you filming right now at all or are you completely done with the second half of Season 3?

Well yeah we shot Season 3 in its entirety last year but they held those eight episodes until now. We started shooting Season 4. We started about three or four weeks ago.

Are you still heavily involved on the show even in Season 4?

Yeah, I’d say as much as I have been. There are definitely episodes where I’m just telling Ari that someone’s on the phone but then they give me one or two episodes where I get a lot to do, a lot of interesting things to do.

What can we expect to see out of Lloyd coming into these last 8 episodes of Season 3? Any hints you can give us?

Well, the first thing I notice, I’ve been seeing a lot of promos lately and the first thing I’ve noticed is that, and I sort of like knew this but I’ve just now seen photographic proof of it: I gained a lot of weight last season. So the first thing you’ll see is that Lloyd just gets bigger and bigger and bigger as the season goes on. I don’t know why I’m laughing, this is painful. Anyway, in terms of what happens in the story, gosh, I mean it’s been so long since we shot it there’s so much I don’t remember. You know Ari and Vince, they sort of make overtures towards each other about maybe having a working relationship again and so these 8 episodes are sort of about how they do that and if it works, are they going to find their way back to each other, who knows?

Looking back at your time on Entourage, do you have any favorite scenes, any favorite episodes for yourself?

Sure, I think probably my favorite episode is one that nobody has seen yet. The episode that will air April 15 is pretty cool. In terms of stuff people have seen, I really love that episode, the episode called Exodus where Ari is trying to get all the agents to leave with him and is foiled and is fired and I drive him home in the car and I give him the big speech.

The Stevie Wonder song?

Yes, exactly. That Stevie Wonder song was like the song that played on my MySpace page for like, forever but then it was finally deleted. But that episode was so cool because if you really go back and look at all the episodes prior to that I kind of think that my bosses at Entourage were trying to figure out if they trusted me as an actor to give me a lot more to do. And I just remember when we had the table read for that episode, you know, Jeremy and Doug were just sort of looking at each other like, yeah, he can do this. I just felt incredibly honored that they trusted me and they gave me a lot of cool things to do in that episode. People really do remember that episode and it makes me feel good. They remember other moments like Andre 3000 or Ari throwing that thing at Lloyd in Season 3. There are a lot of good moments but that’s the episode that people sort of remember as being a good episode for Lloyd.

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