Entourage star Jerry Ferrara has revealed that Tom Brady's cameo on the classic show actually came about because he was drafted in at the last minute to replace his NFL rival Peyton Manning.
Brady made an appearance in a Season 6 episode of the HBO show titled "Fore!" back in 2009. In the episode, the athlete and Entourage executive producer Mark Wahlberg faced off against Vince Chase (Adrian Grenier) and Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) for a round of golf.
And while the episode proved to be a resounding success—and led to Brady making an appearance in the 2015 Entourage movie—it wasn't originally intended that the former New England Patriots quarterback took on the role.
With the show having marked its 20-year anniversary on July 18, Ferrara, 44, spoke with Newsweek about the makings of that episode, revealing that it was supposed to feature the "Manning brothers... who wanted to be on the show. And Doug [Ellin, the creator] then said, 'OK, it'd be great if maybe you two played Vince and Drama in a golf match."
"So he wrote that whole episode, then something scheduling wise happened, and it couldn't go down. But we had to shoot the episode," Ferrara recalled. "We were like two weeks off. So that's where having Wahlberg as your executive producer is a massive benefit because he basically came in and said, 'I'm gonna call Tom.' We're all standing there like, 'Tom Brady?'
"Minutes later, [Wahlberg] comes out he's like, yeah, 'Tom's gonna do it. So it'll be me and Tom, versus Drama and Vince in the episode."
Ferrara, who played Salvatore "Turtle" Assante on the show, said that the episode in question is one that "always comes up when I talk to fans as one of their favorites. But it was not initially scripted that way for Brady and Wahlberg."
Star-Studded Show
Over the years, the show played host to a comprehensive list of stars making cameos, including Scarlett Johansson, Dennis Hopper, John Cleese, Peter Jackson, Christina Aguilera, 50 Cent, Kanye West, Jessica Alba, Gary Busey, Larry David, LeBron James, James Cameron, Eminem, Martin Scorsese, Matt Damon, Mark Cuban, John Cleese, and Phil Mickelson, to name but a few.
Created by Ellin, Entourage is loosely based on Wahlberg's early experiences in Hollywood and the entertainment industry. The Emmy-winning show ran for eight seasons from 2004 to 2011 and spawned a movie, which was released in 2015.
Grenier starred as the protagonist, rising actor Chase, whose tight-knit group of friends formed the titular entourage. As well as Grenier and Ferrara, the show starred Vince, Kevin Dillion (Chase's older brother, Drama), Kevin Connolly (Chase's best friend and manager, Eric Murphy), and Jeremy Piven as Chase's abrasive, no-nonsense agent.
Ferrara's character Turtle was a childhood friend of Chase who became the rising actor's assistant and driver, and was regularly seen transporting his friends around in a black Cadillac Escalade. Ferrara called his character's signature SUV "another location" when it came to filming the show.
Memory Lane
In a nod to his role, Ferrara teamed the Entourage anniversary celebrations with Cadillac's unveiling of the 2025 Escalade. Promotion of the partnership recently saw Ferrara take time out from his home life between New York and Ohio to travel to Hollywood and revisit the cast's old stomping grounds as he got behind the wheel of the new vehicle.
"Just see all the spots that we filmed at and all the places. I can look at almost every square inch of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu and be like, 'Oh, yeah, we shot a scene there. We covered so much in L.A.
"I'm here with my kids who are 5 and 3 years old. They have no idea why I'm like, not emotional, but kind of in my feelings a little bit, they have no idea. And it's all because I can't believe it's been 20 years."
Noting how different his current life is to that of the character he started portraying two decades ago, Ferrara added: "When I am driving a Cadillac Escalade—and I am still the driver—in shotgun, instead of Vinnie Chase in the Escalade, it's my beautiful wife, Bre. And in the back seat, instead of Drama and E, it's Jacob and James in a car seat, buckled in.
"Instead of going to crazy places, we're going to T-ball, taekwondo, and all these kid events. I mean, that is my life right now. And I couldn't be happier. I lost my dad at a young age [and grew up with] a single mom. I always knew the moment I have kids, everything else that I may have loved doing goes literally into the back seat. And I wouldn't have it any other way."
Getting the Part
While Ferrara was propelled to stardom thanks to his role in Entourage, he came close to falling at the first hurdle, thanks to a disastrous initial audition.
"I actually met [Wahlberg] initially, in the audition process. It's much different now, but the final step back then for HBO was you do the network test. So they basically bring three actors for like every character, you go in front of the network, and like a theater and you're basically singing for your supper. You're leaving it all on the field.
"This is the final step, you're an inch closer to getting this part. So I go in for my first reading on that day, and everyone is stressed out and you walk in the theater, and I see in the theater is Doug Ellin, Stephen Levinson [an executive producer], I'm like, 'Oh my God! Wahlberg's here!' So I did kind of get a little nervous."
Ferrara recalled that he "didn't really do great on my first run through and I went back into the lobby area where there's literally 20 other actors, and Wahlberg comes out, and he's like, pointing in my direction. He brings me over and he says, 'Listen, I'm Mark. Just so you know, I saw your audition tapes up to this point, like, you're great. You're the guy, but that wasn't it.'
"So you know, that moment everyone talks about? This is the moment you need to, like, go figure your s*** out. Yeah. And it was like the greatest cup of coffee in the world. I just like snapped and the next time I went in, I think I did much, much better."
For Ferrara, it was the start of a working relationship with Wahlberg that saw the then inexperienced actor walk away impressed by the star.
"What was really the most impressive is just, if you met him on the street, didn't know he's Mark Wahlberg, you'd just be like, he's such a cool dude. Like, what a great hang," Ferrara told Newsweek.
"There was nothing pretentious about him and he really cared about making the show. It was really the first thing he produced. So he had a lot of skin in the game making sure this worked."
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