Riding higher as actor on a downturn

HOW weird is it to be a struggling actor whose career gets a boost when he plays the role of a struggling actor? Let’s ask Kevin Dillon.

Dillon, younger brother of Oscar winner Matt Dillon, plays Johnny Drama, the C-list sibling of the A-list rising star Vinnie Chase in HBO’s “Entourage.”

Drama, Dillon said, “is a good guy, an actor who’s had a pretty successful career but has been struggling lately. His brother is a huge movie star. He got a job last season on that Brooke Shields miniseries. He got a little excited with Brooke and lost the job.”

As for himself, he said that before “Entourage” he had trouble getting an audition for anything. “They know you in the business. It’s this hot and cold thing. If you’re hot, they’ll see you.”

Many actors have told him their favorite scene from the show is the one in which Drama can’t get the attention of casting directors (played by the show’s real writers and producers) and storms out of an audition.

“Probably every actor has wanted to do that at some stage, but you want the job so badly, you don’t do it,” Dillon said. “Some of them say, ‘I did the same thing.’ Right.”

Dillon estimates that only 5% of actors in Hollywood are actually working. “The rest of us are going through what Johnny Drama’s going through. Everybody wants to do it, there just aren’t enough jobs.”